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So i want to collect Tau, but I don't want a gunline army. I want a Breacher based close up army with tons of fast units, so Piranhas Pathfinders and suits.

I'm not good at fluff, so please correct me.

A Tau sept is like a Space marine chapter right?

Well this sept has lost hope in the greater good. After barely surviving an Ork invasion they pretty much got depressed and decided that trying to grow and thrive for the Greater good, something they've never experienced just isn't worth it. What makes matters even worse is the Ork WAAAAAAGH attacking their homeworld, which has forced them to fled.

They now launch suicide attacks against all enemies they can find, Ork or not, not for personal gain but in hopes of in the end being able to escape the unsotppable Ork horde. Squads charge into combat, for they know a bolter round to the head is better than seeing their entire world consumed by Orks.

They paint ther armour and weapons grey and red, to represent the blood they shed and the end that will hopefully come.

Sound good?

A few broad critiques, a few nitpicks:

A Sept is a province of the Tau Empire. Sometimes it represents the entire government and army of a given planet, other times, an entire solar system.

Farsight made his name facing the exact Ork situation you describe, his continued pursuit of them is what lead to him splitting off.

Tau are not, broadly speaking, prone to bouts of suicidal despair (except when an Ethereal died in the old codex! ) That they still build and maintain suits and vehicles would suggest some command structure is still in place...

Tau blood is not red.

That said, there is a good idea in there. The idea of fanatical anti-Ork fighters definitely has potential.

 Matthew wrote:
So i want to collect Tau, but I don't want a gunline army. I want a Breacher based close up army with tons of fast units, so Piranhas Pathfinders and suits.

I'm not good at fluff, so please correct me.

A Tau sept is like a Space marine chapter right?

Not exactly. A Tau Cadre is usually more like a Guardsman regiment, raised from a certain planet/Sept World, and given a taskforce name. There could easily be many Cadres formed from a Sept World, but I don't think there are any Sept Worlds in the main Empire unaccounted for. They are rarely autonomous, usually guided by an Ethereal, so would probably have to be sent into battle on a far edge of the Empire, and their Ethereal killed for them to get away with fleeing.

Well this sept has lost hope in the greater good. After barely surviving an Ork invasion they pretty much got depressed and decided that trying to grow and thrive for the Greater good, something they've never experienced just isn't worth it. What makes matters even worse is the Ork WAAAAAAGH attacking their homeworld, which has forced them to fled.

If this was an outpost world these Tau were defending, I could see it, but a full Sept world? I don't know.

They now launch suicide attacks against all enemies they can find, Ork or not, not for personal gain but in hopes of in the end being able to escape the unsotppable Ork horde. Squads charge into combat, for they know a bolter round to the head is better than seeing their entire world consumed by Orks.

This doesn't make much sense. If they're suicidal, why don't they just commit suicide themselves? If their only goal is to avoid being killed by orks, why do they throw themselves at Orks? Seems counterintuitive. Not to mention they keep building new equipment, or at least maintaining it.

You can easily justify the risky tactics as that's what they've found most effective against Orks, or maybe have an equipment shortage that only supplies them with Pulse Blasters.

Sound good?

I like the idea, I'm doing something like it myself (see my sig). However, just some elements need a bit of a rework, mainly their philosophy - they're suicidal because they don't want to die?

 Matthew wrote:
A Tau sept is like a Space marine chapter right?

No. A sept is a major planet and its associated minor planets (including colonies in other systems). For example, T'au is the Tau homeworld and a single sept. The Tau don't really have a good equivalent to a space marine chapter. A cadre is the largest permanent formation, and it's roughly on the scale of an IG company (or a 1500-2000 point game). Larger units are composed of multiple cadres organized into a chain of command for a specific battle/campaign. While they may fight together for quite a while if the situation requires it they function more like a mixed force of Ultramarines and Raven Guard fighting together for a campaign than a single unified chapter.

Well this sept has lost hope in the greater good. After barely surviving an Ork invasion they pretty much got depressed and decided that trying to grow and thrive for the Greater good, something they've never experienced just isn't worth it.

This would be an exceptional event, if it is possible at all. Remember that even Farsight, an exceptional once-in-a-lifetime rebel against the Tau leadership, only broke away once he was confronted with evidence that the ethereals were lying to the rest of the Tau about the threat of Chaos. And he still sees himself as serving the Tau as a whole, just in the form of rejecting the current leadership for the greater good of the Tau under his command and protection. For a whole sept to say "screw it, we don't care about anything but ourselves" would be blatantly out of character.

What makes matters even worse is the Ork WAAAAAAGH attacking their homeworld, which has forced them to flee.

This would not happen. One of the few things that can force the Tau to stand and fight, regardless of the costs, is a threat to a sept capital world. Turning their backs on their homeworld would be completely inappropriate, unless the planet had been evacuated successfully. And if that's the case then the goal would be to protect the survivors, not to die as quickly as possible.

They now launch suicide attacks against all enemies they can find, Ork or not, not for personal gain but in hopes of in the end being able to escape the unsotppable Ork horde. Squads charge into combat, for they know a bolter round to the head is better than seeing their entire world consumed by Orks.

As pointed out, this doesn't make any sense. Committing suicide to avoid their duty is not how the Tau work. The only way to salvage this at all would be to have your force cut off from the rest of the Tau Empire and any hope of resupply, and have their suicidal nature be stubborn determination to do as much damage to the enemy as possible before they are finally overwhelmed rather than taking the coward's way out. But then you have the problem that your force just wouldn't last very long. It might be a fluffy idea for a "last stand" kind of scenario/campaign, but having that kind of army fighting battle after battle just isn't going to make much sense.

I think Peregrine summed up the validity of your fluff well. I thought I'd just wade in with some guidance for the future seeing as my posts have been very Tau themed today.

A common myth is that Tau strategy involved gunlines; unfortunately the Tau you know on the tabletop are far apart from the Tau in the lore. They're very mobile in both Mont'ka and Kauyon, and don't believe in ground control in the same way as the Imperium or the other factions in 40K. In fact, they've been known to give up ground and willingly retreat to regain an advantage rather than defend an area at a disadvantage.

I'd certainly recommend that you find a copy of the old Tau Codex online to read (the 4th edition one) - it will give you some good insight into Tau society and ways of war, as well as showing you colour schemes from all the major Septs.

I myself am painting a SC set of Tau right now (see my blog page below). No fancy fluff behind it - they're an Honour Guard who specialise in close range firefights, being the vanguard of their expedition. Gives me an excuse to paint more bright green than usual and put Flamers on the Battlesuits so they remind me of dragons. Nothing more needed.

Also keep in mind, Tau armies are the perfect army to go crazy with colour schemes; they wear whatever uniform is appropriate for the environment they're fighting in. The only thing that remains constant is their Sept colours hailing the world they come from.

Hope this helps you out

G.A