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I like Tau big suits, but I don't want them to be the sole thing. I like a nice and varied pallet of units in the Tau army because they are so flexible they have adapted numerous ways of fighting.

I like that a lot about the Tau lore is how adaptable they are in the fluff and always adapting the current situation of war. If something isn't working or an enemy's thing is working well they copy it.

I still hope to see a cool Tau super heavy tank and a hovering space gunship kinda like a tau stealth valkyrie except more anti-tank focused.

While I don't hate new Necron lore I do dislike it a lot.

 SolidOakie wrote:
I don't get why I see people begging for plastic sisters in every comment section of every warhammer article I read. I have a theory it must be a running joke I'm not aware of. How can so many people be enthralled by sisters? Chicks with stupid top knots, AND THEYRE NOT EVEN HAWT!

Sisters are the army of “Throw more money at it until it works”. They rock more bling than Mr T. Sisters are the worst excess of the catholic church, dialed up to eleven… IN SPACE. How to NOT love that? Sisters have the crazy demagogues that will whip the populace into a self-destructive frenzy of religious fervor and burning hatred, they have the perfect paragon of purity and righteousness, and they have the worst sense of what's tasteful in a whole imperium dedicated to being tasteless! It's “Trump full golden apartment” (DON'T TAKE THIS AS AN OCCASION TO TALK POLITICS IT'S NOT ABOUT POLITICS) level of bad taste! Sisters worship small bones coming from long-dead saints, half of which are actually false!!! And this worship give them a fervor that actually gives them an edge of the battleground!!!!!! HOW NOT TO LOVE?
Who cares that they are women, beside the fact it gives some welcome diversity in gender?



I genuinely don't understand why so many people think Tau looks anime. I would like the Tau more if there were less emphasis on the suit and more on the infantry (and auxiliaries) though. And anyone saying Tau are communists don't understand communism, or don't understand the Tau, or more likely understand neither.

The Games Workshop design team. For what they did to my favourite factions.

The way they were portrayed in the FW Taros book is perfect.

Oh, I disagree with this entirely. The Taros book had the Tau mopping the floor with the Imperium in just about every engagement because apparently they're the only ones in the galaxy who understand desert tactics. I get that they were a new army at the time, and the authors wanted to showcase them a bit, but the Imperials were SO incompetent that it felt like they never really posed a threat. It only got a little interesting at the end when the Imperials threw a hail mary pass with the Elysians and the Cadians (a la Arnhem 1944), but everything prior to that and the assassination mission was pretty boring.

I might be mixing editions up, but wasn't it the first Tau Codex that hinted towards the origins of the Tau as being one of The Deceiver's creations and that the Ethereals were 'artificial' and able to manipulate the Tau using pheromones and the like? I remember it reading very 'utopian' in parts, but there was always a sinister undercurrent that everything wasn't quite 'right' with Tau society. The undertones always made their 'greater good assimilation' seem that much more dangerous.

My recollection (which may be false) was that the Deceiver theories were mostly fan-made, though there might have been a few nuggets in some supplementary materials. I don't remember anything like that in the first codex, but again, I could be wrong.

The idea that the Ethereals were using pheromones (I believe) was present, but was framed in such a way as to be little more than Imperial xenophobia and conspiracy theories, rather than an actual analysis.

It's also possible that I'm linking Tau fluff to its exaggeration by Tau players, who I found absolutely insufferable at the time with regards to the points I raised earlier. Now that the fluff has matured a bit I don't really find myself having a problem with them at all.

Anyone who doesn't like orks has no soul or takes 40k way more seriously than it deserves :V

A recent fan theory is that (some) of the 4th sphere could have been tossed backwards in time and the Tau uplifted themselves lol. I love this idea personally.

Tau

Got no problem with their lore. Just hate playing against them.

Jesus Christ the levels are through the roof. And as for the tau hate, read the new Farsight : Crisis of Faith book or ask someone about it, it's incredible. Plus the crisis suits are sexy, and probably the best models in the game, in close competition with the dreadnoughts. Give me more boxes on legs dammit!

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Anyone who doesn't like orks has no soul or takes 40k way more seriously than it deserves :V

Cool, that means I am a blank!

for lore I don't like tau and for gameplay probably eldar

Harbringerxv8 wrote:

The way they were portrayed in the FW Taros book is perfect.

Oh, I disagree with this entirely. The Taros book had the Tau mopping the floor with the Imperium in just about every engagement because apparently they're the only ones in the galaxy who understand desert tactics. I get that they were a new army at the time, and the authors wanted to showcase them a bit, but the Imperials were SO incompetent that it felt like they never really posed a threat. It only got a little interesting at the end when the Imperials threw a hail mary pass with the Elysians and the Cadians (a la Arnhem 1944), but everything prior to that and the assassination mission was pretty boring.

I meant doctrinally, with how it showed Tau's mix of combined arms, their tactical/strategic flexibility, and their willingness to embrace technological advancements to help adapt solutions to battlefield problems (such as the debut of the AX-1-0 as an anti-titan A-10 stand-in). I mostly treated the book as a story to highlight the Tau way of war; there are blatant holes in how they had to railroad the Imperial-side of the story to make it work. Even the most basic aspect and the reasoning for it - landing 500km away from their objectives - made no sense. The IG are one of the lore's constant whipping boys, though.

The Raid on Kastorel-Novem is another one. A veteran Elysian unit supporting Raven Guard... and Commanders in both approve a plan where the Elysians try a hammer and anvil approach where they... force the Orks to retreat into an ambushing force? Everywhere in the lore people take it as simple, well-known fact that Orks are dumb, brutish, and would rather charge to a losing fight than run away. Yet, veteran IG commanders think they're going to force an Ork group to... run away from them? Right.

sossen wrote:
WH40k players disliking space marines is like a sports team fan disliking their own star player.

Not really, it's like those fans that dislike the most popular team in the championship and hope that anyone, but not that hated team, wins the competition.

40k is not marines, 30k is. SM are only one faction, the most popular one, but not everything is around them. I hate them, gamewise speaking of course, and they're certainly not may own star players, rather my rival ones

sossen wrote:
WH40k players disliking space marines is like a sports team fan disliking their own star player.

"You're the real Space Marine, Roman!"

GhostRecon wrote:


I meant doctrinally, with how it showed Tau's mix of combined arms, their tactical/strategic flexibility, and their willingness to embrace technological advancements to help adapt solutions to battlefield problems (such as the debut of the AX-1-0 as an anti-titan A-10 stand-in). I mostly treated the book as a story to highlight the Tau way of war; there are blatant holes in how they had to railroad the Imperial-side of the story to make it work. Even the most basic aspect and the reasoning for it - landing 500km away from their objectives - made no sense. The IG are one of the lore's constant whipping boys, though.

The Raid on Kastorel-Novem is another one. A veteran Elysian unit supporting Raven Guard... and Commanders in both approve a plan where the Elysians try a hammer and anvil approach where they... force the Orks to retreat into an ambushing force? Everywhere in the lore people take it as simple, well-known fact that Orks are dumb, brutish, and would rather charge to a losing fight than run away. Yet, veteran IG commanders think they're going to force an Ork group to... run away from them? Right.

Ah got it. Yes, it did showcase Tau doctrine under ideal circumstances. And you're right, there is a strange lack of self-awareness in many Imperial commanders who seem to have been trained with an inferior version of our strategies and expectations, rather than in a context where the most common enemy is psychotic fungal soccer hooligans. Baseline tactics really ought to shift a touch.

 Blackie wrote:
40k is not marines, 30k is.P

Unfortunatley, there's a lot of boring people who want 40k to become 30k, but they're boring so they're usually pretty easy to ignore like most boring people are.

 Melissia wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
40k is not marines, 30k is.P

Unfortunatley, there's a lot of boring people who want 40k to become 30k, but they're boring so they're usually pretty easy to ignore like most boring people are.

"if they were a spice they'd be flour. If they were a book they'd be two books."

So boring that watching paint dry on a wall is considered entertainment.

If I need to have a most hated faction, it'd be the Tau.
They have little to no variety and are just plain boring to play against. Necrons are a close second.

Harbringerxv8 wrote:

GhostRecon wrote:


I meant doctrinally, with how it showed Tau's mix of combined arms, their tactical/strategic flexibility, and their willingness to embrace technological advancements to help adapt solutions to battlefield problems (such as the debut of the AX-1-0 as an anti-titan A-10 stand-in). I mostly treated the book as a story to highlight the Tau way of war; there are blatant holes in how they had to railroad the Imperial-side of the story to make it work. Even the most basic aspect and the reasoning for it - landing 500km away from their objectives - made no sense. The IG are one of the lore's constant whipping boys, though.

The Raid on Kastorel-Novem is another one. A veteran Elysian unit supporting Raven Guard... and Commanders in both approve a plan where the Elysians try a hammer and anvil approach where they... force the Orks to retreat into an ambushing force? Everywhere in the lore people take it as simple, well-known fact that Orks are dumb, brutish, and would rather charge to a losing fight than run away. Yet, veteran IG commanders think they're going to force an Ork group to... run away from them? Right.

Ah got it. Yes, it did showcase Tau doctrine under ideal circumstances. And you're right, there is a strange lack of self-awareness in many Imperial commanders who seem to have been trained with an inferior version of our strategies and expectations, rather than in a context where the most common enemy is psychotic fungal soccer hooligans. Baseline tactics really ought to shift a touch.

IG itself is irrelevant to anything. Space Marines are what solve anything, always them for the most part. Hell, they even near retconned the one guardsmen Saint whom Horus killed, then I think made him Immortal to make it worthless to begin with. They have become a parody of itself.

sossen wrote:
WH40k players disliking space marines is like a sports team fan disliking their own star player.

I think it's more like liking star wars but hating the Jedi. I don't get that but it's clear tyhere are a wide group of people whom do in fact feel that way. Those of us who like it do find it a bit weird, they're the poster boys, all the stories told are about them, but for the folks who dislike it "THATS THE POINT! THERE'S MORE TO THE SETTING AND THOSE POSTER BOYS ARE SUCKING UP ALL THE OXYGEN!" it's just a differant way of looking at the setting.

Mine is Tau. I've borrowed my brother's army, I've played against them for years... they just don't play in a way that I find enjoyable.

I don't really hate any particular faction. I just find some unnecessary.

Space Marines are the guardian monks and showcase of the pinnacle of humanity while the Imperial Guard is their heart and soul. The Mechanicus shows us how far we've fallen, and just how divided and inflexible we are as humans when it comes to overwhelming dogma. Eldar hearken back to a time before humanity and act as a warning for us, whereas the dark eldar lose the pompous nature of their brothers and show exactly what led to the downfall of the Eldar. Chaos Marines do the same for humanity, a reminder of what our weaknesses are. Daemons bring a lovecraftian vibe to the setting, a feel that this universe cannot be taken completely at face value, and that danger is always present, even in times of peace. The Necrons are the oldest surviving race and are a universal and mysterious evil, all while having an air of knowing something we don't. The tryanids bring a mindless, cosmic threat to the setting, one unknown in scope and origin. The orks are the brutal race that puts constant pressure on pretty much every faction, and will often surge to humble and surprise one of the other factions in their strength every now and then.

Then we have the... superfluous factions. The Sisters of Battle are just kinda there for fan-service. I see a lot of people saying that orks break the immersion from the grim dark universe, but for me, it's the women walking around in boob armor swinging around flamethrowers and chainswords. They could honestly work for me if they were actually taken seriously now and then. The Tau are... too clean. In this universe where every faction is clawing just to survive, the Tau seem too... relaxed. Sure, they have that totalitarian thing going on but when you compare North Korea to the Imperium of Man, suddenly Kim Jong Un seems like a pretty reasonable guy. They can't be tainted by Chaos, their traitors are even more noblebright than the main faction, and their technology is clean and spectacular despite being an extremely young race. That, and the whole Japanese aesthetic doesn't really work well in the setting.

So I don't really hate any faction, I just don't see why some were added. They don't detract anything, just distract.

Tau serve as the tiny pinprick of light which shows the darkness.

This isn't my most hated faction, but I find Guard really boring. I understand how some people would see a universe where you can be anything and decide to be "just some dude" but that is not for me.

The fact that I think Death Korps of Krieg is really cool should tell you all you need to know about why I dislike baseline Astra Militarum.

Arachnofiend wrote:
This isn't my most hated faction, but I find Guard really boring. I understand how some people would see a universe where you can be anything and decide to be "just some dude" but that is not for me.

The fact that I think Death Korps of Krieg is really cool should tell you all you need to know about why I dislike baseline Astra Militarum.

To be fair, most people who like IG don't like Astra Militarum. Let me explain:

The IG has always been super diverse. Any trope in the world fits in the IG. If you like medieval crusader-knights, you can play Black Templars, or you can play your own IG regiment from a feudal world. You like what happens when stone-age barbarians are given laser rifles, there's a place for that in the IG. If you want an army of wizards, the Imperial Guard can field whole squads of them. Did you want to play Delta-Force badasses who don't need the best gear, but just their wits and their training? There's a regiment for that. Did you like massive tanks? The IG has them. What about a high-tech world that uses hover tanks and land crawlers? Absolutely! A naval regiment from an ocean world? Definitely within the purview of the IG!

The problem is that their rules on the table are not that, and their recent fluff has been "Cadians and those other 5 regiments."

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Tau serve as the tiny pinprick of light which shows the darkness.

This is actually the reason I love them. They make the setting so much better by being that contrast. They are what would be in most settings, the main protagonist. While others are clawing to hold onto this empires or fading away the Tau are a young, intelligent race building towards a brighter future, a voice of reason and harmony between races rather than warring against one another...

And the group that we as a whole are supposed to be rooting for view them as monstrous abominations, where any who choose to side with them are traitorous scum worthy of nothing but a slow and agonizing death. By existing, by saying, "Hey, join us, work together, we can be so much more!" The Tau highlight just how horrible everything really is. The contrast between them, who would be the good guys in most settings, and the Imperium, who is the good guy in this setting, is stark and horrible. It really pushes the fact that the Imperium is a crap place to actually live in, one that considers anyone who listens to, "join us and we'll work together to make a better place to live" nothing more than a traitor to exterminate.

You can't really have a setting where everything is awful, or else it all just kind of blends together and fades away to an extent. But by having that speck of light be something the "good guys" are not only actively against, but trying to stamp out, it puts everything else into focus.

Deadawake1347 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Tau serve as the tiny pinprick of light which shows the darkness.

This is actually the reason I love them. They make the setting so much better by being that contrast. They are what would be in most settings, the main protagonist. While others are clawing to hold onto this empires or fading away the Tau are a young, intelligent race building towards a brighter future, a voice of reason and harmony between races rather than warring against one another...

And the group that we as a whole are supposed to be rooting for view them as monstrous abominations, where any who choose to side with them are traitorous scum worthy of nothing but a slow and agonizing death. By existing, by saying, "Hey, join us, work together, we can be so much more!" The Tau highlight just how horrible everything really is. The contrast between them, who would be the good guys in most settings, and the Imperium, who is the good guy in this setting, is stark and horrible. It really pushes the fact that the Imperium is a crap place to actually live in, one that considers anyone who listens to, "join us and we'll work together to make a better place to live" nothing more than a traitor to exterminate.

You can't really have a setting where everything is awful, or else it all just kind of blends together and fades away to an extent. But by having that speck of light be something the "good guys" are not only actively against, but trying to stamp out, it puts everything else into focus.

Wow your view of the Tau is backwards from mine.

I started to like them myself for the opposite reason. I used to think of them as noblebright scum trying to ruin my 40k with such things as 'logic' and 'sense'... until my friend talked to me about it. I told him that, and he said:

"No, you're wrong, you're absolutely wrong. Think about if the Tau Empire was in Star Trek, or Star Wars, or Doctor Who. They'd absolutely be bad guys. Expansionist authoritarians, who expect you to serve the State without question, who offer peace but only on their terms, and who are unhesitating to use force upon those who do not comply with their ideology or doctrine. They will not have mutual peace, they cannot live-and-let-live; their ideology mandates that it be spread to all the corners of the galaxy. In any other setting, they would be an abhorrent evil, no better than the Borg."

I saved this chat blurb and still to this day am reminded as to why I no longer dislike the Tau (as much as I used to. They're still filthy inhuman xenos).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Deadawake1347 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Tau serve as the tiny pinprick of light which shows the darkness.

This is actually the reason I love them. They make the setting so much better by being that contrast. They are what would be in most settings, the main protagonist. While others are clawing to hold onto this empires or fading away the Tau are a young, intelligent race building towards a brighter future, a voice of reason and harmony between races rather than warring against one another...

And the group that we as a whole are supposed to be rooting for view them as monstrous abominations, where any who choose to side with them are traitorous scum worthy of nothing but a slow and agonizing death. By existing, by saying, "Hey, join us, work together, we can be so much more!" The Tau highlight just how horrible everything really is. The contrast between them, who would be the good guys in most settings, and the Imperium, who is the good guy in this setting, is stark and horrible. It really pushes the fact that the Imperium is a crap place to actually live in, one that considers anyone who listens to, "join us and we'll work together to make a better place to live" nothing more than a traitor to exterminate.

You can't really have a setting where everything is awful, or else it all just kind of blends together and fades away to an extent. But by having that speck of light be something the "good guys" are not only actively against, but trying to stamp out, it puts everything else into focus.

Wow your view of the Tau is backwards from mine.

I started to like them myself for the opposite reason. I used to think of them as noblebright scum trying to ruin my 40k with such things as 'logic' and 'sense'... until my friend talked to me about it. I told him that, and he said:

"No, you're wrong, you're absolutely wrong. Think about if the Tau Empire was in Star Trek, or Star Wars, or Doctor Who. They'd absolutely be bad guys. Expansionist authoritarians, who expect you to serve the State without question, who offer peace but only on their terms, and who are unhesitating to use force upon those who do not comply with their ideology or doctrine. They will not have mutual peace, they cannot live-and-let-live; their ideology mandates that it be spread to all the corners of the galaxy. In any other setting, they would be an abhorrent evil, no better than the Borg."

I saved this chat blurb and still to this day am reminded as to why I no longer dislike the Tau (as much as I used to. They're still filthy inhuman xenos).

Both interpretations are part of what makes the Tau a good addition to the 40K universe. In the 40K Milky Way, they are that pinprick of light to highlight how terrible the other factions are.

But then when we compare them to other settings, as you point out, we realise they are still horrific in their ideology. This only serves to even further highlight the grimdark of the 40K universe where even the faction which appears to be the one tiny source of hope is actually horrific when compared outside the 40K universe.

Arson Fire wrote:


The tyranid guns are mostly supposed to be separate creatures to the host. Hence most of the guns having eyes on them.
However the weapon and the host are grown together, and have fused around each other.

The hosts fingers have grown into the weapon, connecting their circulatory systems.
Their hands have splayed out and twisted around and through the weapon.
Tubes have grown from the weapon into the hosts flesh.

There's no way a tyranid could drop its weapon and pick up another. You can see this just be looking at the models.
Check out this venom cannon. You can still see something resembling hands wrapped around it. Vestigial fingers integrating with the weapon symbiote. But it's pretty hard to say the host is 'holding' the weapon. They are inseparable.

Makes sense from a modularity point of view. It would be easier to maintain a single 'template' for gaunts, and one for each of the compatible weapon creatures, than to have a separate template for each and every sub-species of gaunt.

I get how the whole thing works and I do appreciate how the biological aspects of the weapon symbiotes are addressed, really.

That said, I too am in the camp that dislikes the aesthetics of the ranged weapon symbiotes.

I guess my beef with them is that they just don't...seem alien enough? Like the 'gun' look of the ranged weapon symbiotes kind of clashes with the rest of the feral alien vibe they have going on.

The only ranged 'Nid weapons I really appreciate aesthetically are the ones that look more integrated and naturally biological - like the bio/pyrovores and exocrines. It's for this reason that the only ranged models I have in my Tyranid collection, at present, are some zoanthropes, hive crones and trygons. I would like to pick up some of the aforementioned artillery beasties at some point, though (and Emperor knows my 'Nids could use some more ranged punch).

No poll, that's a pity.
My vote goes to Dark Eldar. Never liked their models and their fluff.