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Hey If this more belongs in the campaign forum then please move it but it's not fully planned and I wanted to see if it's fluffy enough.

Basically after Shadowbrand's Road to Glory. I deciceded to do something more on the side of good the Greater good to be in fact.
The gist of it The Imperium has sent a juggernaught fleet to wipe out the Tau once and for all. The Empire must make its stand outnumbered 10-1 the Tau must destroy 20 regiments of guard and 1 whole space marine chapter and a large regiment of witch hunter's.

The Tau will fight in space, on moons, asterioids, and their worlds.

Could this happen? The Imperium originally was planning to kill em off.
I was inspired after watching a documentery about Churcill vs Hitler over the Battle of Britain. Lots of aircraft battles too.

I am a tau player and even as much as I love the guys, the Imperium decided to kill off the tau, they could not stop them. The tau are too small and the Imperium is to big. Would they put up a fight? Yes they would, but the tau would still die. Fortunately the Imperium is to busy with chaos, the orks, the nids, eldar of various colors, crons, and its own corruption to be bothered to destroy the Tau Empire.

Shadowbrand wrote:Hey If this more belongs in the campaign forum then please move it but it's not fully planned and I wanted to see if it's fluffy enough.

Basically after Shadowbrand's Road to Glory. I deciceded to do something more on the side of good the Greater good to be in fact.
The gist of it The Imperium has sent a juggernaught fleet to wipe out the Tau once and for all. The Empire must make its stand outnumbered 10-1 the Tau must destroy 20 regiments of guard and 1 whole space marine chapter and a large regiment of witch hunter's.

The Tau will fight in space, on moons, asterioids, and their worlds.

Could this happen? The Imperium originally was planning to kill em off.
I was inspired after watching a documentery about Churcill vs Hitler over the Battle of Britain. Lots of aircraft battles too.

Lets imagine your campaign:

- turn 1 Tau etheral
- turn 2 Imperium
- turn 3 Tau =
- turn 4 Imperium
- turn 5 Tau :

really short campaign.

as long as both teams are equal i dont see why not....
but maby a smaller imperial task force becauset he emperor is busy fighting an endless war against the strongest beings in all of the universe and guys that just wanna poke people with axes(orks)

If the Imperium was going to start a full purge:

It would be all hands on deck, and far more than 20 Guard regiments, a Chapter of Space Marines, and Witch Hunters(who actually wouldn't be involved at all, or if they were it would be rooting out Tau sympathizing humans on the reclaimed worlds rather than active combat).

You'd most likely see Deathwatch Kill-Teams hitting the field, Adeptus Mechanicus siege units, Titan Legions, hundreds of Guard regiments, several Marine Chapters, Temple Assassins, Ordo Xenos support and the like.

I could work as a campaign, but youd have to include other races as well. Orks arent gonna wanna miss this fight. And odds are the Eldar somehow found a way to work this into their "destiny" (xenos scum), and if it was any Inquisitorial branch to take up arms in it, it would be the Deathwatch (xenos hunters), effectivly removing the need for space marines, but not negating the possibility. And if this is for the survival entire tau race, it should be for more than one planet, with the actual Tau planet being heavily defended and giving massive bonuses to Tau players. But fluffwise, it could work. theres plenty of imperial forces to spare to crush the Tau.

Nope, the water caste would convert all IG sent their way to The Greater good.

So we will have Deathwatch a ton of guardmen and Titans being sent thier way.

If the Imperium wanted the Tau dead they would be. Like others have said between the Deathwatch, Guard, Mechanicus who (interested in Tau tech. probably) could bring a Titan legion, and if they wanted, some Smurf chapters as well.

If the Tau fend them off, they'll bring MORE.

Timmah wrote:Nope, the water caste would convert all IG sent their way to The Greater good.

...lol?

You realize that the only conversions that have happened had nothing to do with the Water caste, but were Guard units from operations like the Damocles Gulf Crusade or the Taros campaign, yeah?

And that those were only conversions due to things like y'know...

The Imperium deciding to go and deal with the bigger threat(a pair of Hive Fleets...) and packing up and leaving.

I guess the Imperium doesn't look at the Tau as too much of a threat with their million worlds empire.

Less than a single chapter of marines took back what? A dozen worlds? In just a few months too. The Tau are doomed in their current state, but I would love to see it played out

You guys are kind of missing the point.

The Imperium does want the Tau dead, because they are aliens.

They tried twice and failed twice, partly due to external circumstances but also because during the Damocles Crusade resistance was much tougher than expected. They had a huge force and didn't take a dozen worlds in a few months with a few hundred marines.

The Tau are stronger now than they were during Damocles Crusade, have a bigger empire and better technology.

It's only GW's weird fluff timewarp that means Tau technology hasn't completely outstripped Imperial. Damocles Crusade was 300 years ago, during which time according to the GW fluff the dynamic, techno fiend Tau ony managed to stop their sniper rifle having the Gets Hot rule.

This balances the point that it's only all the other problems the Imperium has on its plate that stops them sending much bigger crusades against the Tau.

"Twice"?

I only know of the one, which was the Damocles Gulf Crusade that was a full on attempt to exterminate the Tau.

The Taros campaign was intended to be nothing but a quashing of, what they were under the impression of, a radical governor and some minor Xenos allies.

The original expedition to wipe out the Tau when they were newly discovered, which failed due to a very convenient (?) warp storm.

Well the 3 Tau players I know are really for it, so i'm gonna give it a shot

Is it the Imperium outnumbered 10 to 1?

Are the Tau forces spread out across their whole Empire?

The Tau are the 1 The Imperium's sent a Crusade Fleet.
And I'd Imagine the Tau are not focused in one place, since they are aware of the attack yet not what flank they are getting hit at.

I'm thinking the Imperium would be careful deploying Titans given their experience in Damocles. They pulled the ones they had pretty quick after the Tau sent in railguns in flight.

That said, the Tau would be toast even with Kilkrazy's time dilation observation.

edit: giving > given

Shadowbrand wrote:The Tau are the 1 The Imperium's sent a Crusade Fleet.
And I'd Imagine the Tau are not focused in one place, since they are aware of the attack yet not what flank they are getting hit at.

Tau are notorious for infiltrating planets on the edge of their sphere of influence, to trade tech and info with the native with the idea of an eventual take-over.

It's pretty unlikely a massive invasion force could assemble behind the frontier completely silently.

Then the Tau have the strategic advantage of the central position. Knowing the invasion is coming from one edge of their area, they can concentrate forces to cut off its communications and attack it from the flanks.

Do you really think the Imperium would just cruise in and cleanse the space, planet by planet now?

We know that the Imperium understands the importance that Ethereals play now, and the Imperium also has the advantage of Warp travel, which remember the Tau do not utilize.

It's entirely possible that the Imperium could completely wipe out the planet T'au, and then break the Crusade fleet up to deal with the remaining worlds with ease.

But the whole point of contention is the assumption that the Tau can organize themselves to deal with a MASSIVE invasion fleet. Because make no mistake, a Crusade fleet intent on wiping out a civilization, rather than taking back a few random worlds or working off centuries old intelligence will be huge. The Tau, while a respectable force, has nothing that can really hold back that kind of an armada.

We know the Imperium can't even keep Chaos off Cadia.

Timmah wrote:Nope, the water caste would convert all IG sent their way to The Greater good.

... Seriously?

Ok, fine. Here's how that would play out.

Water caste negotiator #1: Hello humans! Care to join the Greater Good? We have wine and women!
Imperial Guardsmen #1-56: WINE AND WOMEN! HURRAH!
Imperial Guardsman #57: Waaaaait a second guys! These are xeno women. Now I don't know about you, but I don't swing that way, so just forget about it.
Water caste negotiator #2: Uhh, did I mention we have cookies!? Mmm cookies!
Guardsmen #1-56: COOKIES! HURRAH AGAIN!
Commissar: HERESY! HERESY! THOSE ARE HERETIC anime fan TARDFAG COOKIES AND YOU WILL NOT TOUCH THEM! DIE IN THE EMPEROR'S NAME, HERETIC anime fan LOVARS!!! *Randomly starts shooting. Kills twenty Guardsmen.*
Guardsman #57: Quick boys! Let's kill these anime fan pansydorks before the Commissar shoots us all!
Water caste negotiator #1-2: Bugger...
Thirty bajillion las-guns: FAJOOOM ZAP!

And thus we see the tragic ending of our little story.

Now, what can we learn from this? That's right, we can learn that "in the Imperium of Man, there is no such thing as overkill!"


So yah, if the Imperials wanted to wipe out the Tau, they'd send a big fleet. Like, REALLY big.

Kilkrazy wrote:We know the Imperium can't even keep Chaos off Cadia.

Ummm, yes they can. It's the only stable way out of the Eye of Terror, and they've held it against Failabaddon's Black Crusades for 10,000 years now.

But more to the point, if the Imperium decided that they wanted to actually get rid of the Tau once and for all, they could easily do it. The Tau continue to exist only for as long as the Imperium decides that other fronts are greater threats and require more resources.

Kilkrazy wrote:We know the Imperium can't even keep Chaos off Cadia.

They were doing just fine until the 13th Black Crusade, and even now the background indicates that the Imperium still dominates the space around Cadia and is currently setting up resupply points for the no less than HALF the planet that is occupied by Cadian regiments on the ground, after pushing the Chaos fleets back into the eye.

Or so Cadian Blood tells us.

Wait, does "anime fan" filter?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ha, it does.

Ironic.

Well I think its plausible so I'm going to go ahead with it.

Shadowbrand wrote:Well I think its plausible so I'm going to go ahead with it.

Hooray! At last the foul xenos Tau shall be extinguished from the universe by the Emperor's wrath!

My guess is that the Imperial Navy would use superior warp-travel to outflank the Tau and deploy forces where they couldn't deal with them.

Personally, I think the Eldar are better suited to wiping out the Tau; if they threatened *my* craftworld I would find a way to ensure that a WAAAAGH! ended up targeting their homeworld and see that the Tau are exposed to the horrors of the Warp. That'll show those idealistic space commies.

I see no reason why the imperials couldnt use warp travel to send a suicide ship to tau, use it to drop a few cyclonic torpedoes on the world, and then leave. But lets be serious, the only reason the tau have survived is because of bigger (cooler) threats to the imperium.