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Now, lore junkies out there may have more info and can enlighten me, but the Chaos quartet (Maybe quintet?), that is most commonly presented, seem to me to be the result of mainly Eldar and Mankind. This may be perspective of the story tellers of course...

But; is there any lore that supports any other major Xenos races feeding into them? It's been referred to that Orks and Chaos don't really mix, (aside from some early mentions of Khorne, which actually seems to make sense...) And Nids are completely alien to them. Necrons and Tau don't have an affinity either, (But maybe I'm outdated on fluff here), so is Chaos (as we know it), entirely the fault of the Eldar Empire, pre-fall and the Imperium after that? Of course minor civilisations may also have an effect, but the big bad seems to be almost hopelessly linked to these two and without them; would Chaos be a much reduced faction in a Necron/Tau/Tyranid/Ork Galaxy? (If at all) Or would Chaos in that universe shape itself around the desires of those factions? (If it could...)

Chaos in the 40k Universe may be weakened, but it exists in every reality, so it wont be killed, the gods would likely look for a new target, the most obvious being the Tau, while they have little warp presence they still have some, and they are an expanding species unlike all of the other 40k main races, so Tau make the most sense to try to corrupt and stagnate like the Imperium, unless some other race expands to fill the gap.

Orks don't really feed Chaos, and apart from them Eldar and Mankind are the only two other common intelligent races found in the galaxy.
Other, minor races may also feed Chaos, but they are not numerous enough to contribute much.
It stands to reason that without most of its emotional fuel, Chaos would be vastly less powerful. Without Eldar and Humans, Chaos would only be a dim shade of what it is now.

The Laer and the Kinebranch are the most obvious.

Yeah I'd say Orks wind up over-running everything.

The vast majority of Chaotic forces in the galaxy are human (presumably because we're easy to corrupt, and have sufficient of a warp presence to make it worthwhile).

Wipe out humanity and there's suddenly a massive power vacuum in both the Imperium being gone, a large proportion of Chaos' forces being gone, and the principle method for Chaos encroaching on our reality gone.

Without humans (and eldar), the only viable choices for chaotic influence are either not numerous enough to ensure a powerbase, and/or not easily influenced by Chaos (Tau, Necrons, Orks).

So, massive battle between an exploding population of Orks, incoming Tyranids and awakening Necrons while Chaos sits on the sidelines trying to shout into the ears of Tau to go shoot someone, who are to all intents and purposes warp-deaf.

There is a plot that some races, including some Eldar leaders, that hopes to starve chaos into extinction by channeling circumstances to result in human eradication.

Eldar do not need to die for this to be actionable. Arguably humans need not all die either.

 Orlanth wrote:
There is a plot that some races, including some Eldar leaders, that hopes to starve chaos into extinction by channeling circumstances to result in human eradication.

Eldar do not need to die for this to be actionable. Arguably humans need not all die either.

There is

Before anyone chimes in, 'extinction' could well mean 'eliminating the Chaos Gods' influence in this universe'. Even if the Gods are multi-dimensional, if they can't influence this dimension they're as good as dead as far as the inhabitants of the milky way are concerned.

There’s been mention of a Genestealer cult that fell to Nurgle, so maybe Tyranids can mutate into something that feeds Chaos. Chaos does adapt to the galaxy though, so if Tau are all that’s left maybe we see the Farsight Enclaves fall to Khorne or an Ethereal with too much exposure to the Warp come out with “Greater Good 2.0: this time with 200% more plague.”

 Formosa wrote:
Chaos in the 40k Universe may be weakened, but it exists in every reality, so it wont be killed, the gods would likely look for a new target, the most obvious being the Tau, while they have little warp presence they still have some, and they are an expanding species unlike all of the other 40k main races, so Tau make the most sense to try to corrupt and stagnate like the Imperium, unless some other race expands to fill the gap.

In what possible way are Tau the next target of the Chaos Gods, should man and Eldar fall? They're a race that's got a naturally small warp presence, small enough to be of note, so that's a deterrent to targeting them, while being one of the less populous species compared to, say, Orks, Q'orl or Hrud.

Don't blame all the humans for the Dark Gods. Adeptus Mechanicus doesn't believe in that nonsense, or emotion.. or flesh.. They generally abhor psykers and emotion in general. I imagine when half your brain is circuits, your warp signature is probably much less powerful. However, I'm not sure if/how the applies to non-mechanicus humans living on their worlds - most of whom are laborers if not servitors.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
There’s been mention of a Genestealer cult that fell to Nurgle, so maybe Tyranids can mutate into something that feeds Chaos.

It suffered a Nurgle mutation, but that's different from falling. In addition, a Cult doesn't have the myriad of defenses a Hive Fleet has.

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:
In what possible way are Tau the next target of the Chaos Gods, should man and Eldar fall? They're a race that's got a naturally small warp presence, small enough to be of note, so that's a deterrent to targeting them, while being one of the less populous species compared to, say, Orks, Q'orl or Hrud.

You're aware Tau empire is maybe like 40-50% Tau? All other races in it can be corrupted, cue Shadowsun Heresy or something and her climactic sword duel with Farsight aboard her battleship

 Irbis wrote:

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:
In what possible way are Tau the next target of the Chaos Gods, should man and Eldar fall? They're a race that's got a naturally small warp presence, small enough to be of note, so that's a deterrent to targeting them, while being one of the less populous species compared to, say, Orks, Q'orl or Hrud.

You're aware Tau empire is maybe like 40-50% Tau? All other races in it can be corrupted, cue Shadowsun Heresy or something and her climactic sword duel with Farsight aboard her battleship

Don't know the exact ratio of Tau, but even going with half non-Tau, you're still going with the Chaos Gods targetting a tiny Empire in which half of them are noticeably less connected to the Warp, rather than one of the many other races that are larger than the Tau, and don't have a huge group of their population being naturally better at resisting corruption.

 Irbis wrote:

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:
In what possible way are Tau the next target of the Chaos Gods, should man and Eldar fall? They're a race that's got a naturally small warp presence, small enough to be of note, so that's a deterrent to targeting them, while being one of the less populous species compared to, say, Orks, Q'orl or Hrud.

You're aware Tau empire is maybe like 40-50% Tau? All other races in it can be corrupted, cue Shadowsun Heresy or something and her climactic sword duel with Farsight aboard her battleship

Climactic sword duel? There's nothing climactic about Farsight swinging once and her falling dead.

SirWeeble wrote:
Don't blame all the humans for the Dark Gods. Adeptus Mechanicus doesn't believe in that nonsense, or emotion.. or flesh.. They generally abhor psykers and emotion in general. I imagine when half your brain is circuits, your warp signature is probably much less powerful. However, I'm not sure if/how the applies to non-mechanicus humans living on their worlds - most of whom are laborers if not servitors.

Fully mechanically replaced people can still be pawns in Tzeentch's games. He can always tempt them with more information and technology and draw them into his influence.

Perhaps, even though Nurgle's diseases can affect mechanical things, the nature of Nurgle itself would change if there was only mechanical life in the universe.

TarkinLarson wrote:

SirWeeble wrote:
Don't blame all the humans for the Dark Gods. Adeptus Mechanicus doesn't believe in that nonsense, or emotion.. or flesh.. They generally abhor psykers and emotion in general. I imagine when half your brain is circuits, your warp signature is probably much less powerful. However, I'm not sure if/how the applies to non-mechanicus humans living on their worlds - most of whom are laborers if not servitors.

Fully mechanically replaced people can still be pawns in Tzeentch's games. He can always tempt them with more information and technology and draw them into his influence.

Perhaps, even though Nurgle's diseases can affect mechanical things, the nature of Nurgle itself would change if there was only mechanical life in the universe.

Yeah, whilst the Chaos Gods can definitely mess with mechanical stuff, the question is whether it'll feed them. If they don't have emotions, they're not feeding the Gods, and then they're screwed completely. The whole galaxy can be filled with pus, bile and horrific plagues, but if there's nothing to feel despair at this, Nurgle's not going to be around.

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Chaos in the 40k Universe may be weakened, but it exists in every reality, so it wont be killed, the gods would likely look for a new target, the most obvious being the Tau, while they have little warp presence they still have some, and they are an expanding species unlike all of the other 40k main races, so Tau make the most sense to try to corrupt and stagnate like the Imperium, unless some other race expands to fill the gap.

In what possible way are Tau the next target of the Chaos Gods, should man and Eldar fall? They're a race that's got a naturally small warp presence, small enough to be of note, so that's a deterrent to targeting them, while being one of the less populous species compared to, say, Orks, Q'orl or Hrud.

Sorry thought I had replied to this already.

Ok so the imperium falls, that leaves a massive vacuum, Eldar are on the brink of dieing out, necrons will take time, and are immune to chaos, nids too, orks too etc.


So that leaves the Tau Empire, dynamic and expansive exactly like the Imperium pre heresy, knows very little about chaos, just like the old imperium, has so many varied races within its ranks and would spread to fill the gap the imperials have left much faster (proving FTL happens) than any of the other races bar orks, if the Tau empires reaches a large enough size, weak warp presence of the Tau wont matter, the gods will notice, and latch on, try to corrupt them from outside or inside.

So if the IOM goes, the Tau are the next logical race to try to corrupt.

 Formosa wrote:

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Chaos in the 40k Universe may be weakened, but it exists in every reality, so it wont be killed, the gods would likely look for a new target, the most obvious being the Tau, while they have little warp presence they still have some, and they are an expanding species unlike all of the other 40k main races, so Tau make the most sense to try to corrupt and stagnate like the Imperium, unless some other race expands to fill the gap.

In what possible way are Tau the next target of the Chaos Gods, should man and Eldar fall? They're a race that's got a naturally small warp presence, small enough to be of note, so that's a deterrent to targeting them, while being one of the less populous species compared to, say, Orks, Q'orl or Hrud.

Sorry thought I had replied to this already.

Ok so the imperium falls, that leaves a massive vacuum, Eldar are on the brink of dieing out, necrons will take time, and are immune to chaos, nids too, orks too etc.


So that leaves the Tau Empire, dynamic and expansive exactly like the Imperium pre heresy, knows very little about chaos, just like the old imperium, has so many varied races within its ranks and would spread to fill the gap the imperials have left much faster (proving FTL happens) than any of the other races bar orks, if the Tau empires reaches a large enough size, weak warp presence of the Tau wont matter, the gods will notice, and latch on, try to corrupt them from outside or inside.

So if the IOM goes, the Tau are the next logical race to try to corrupt.

But the Tau DON'T have FTL, or at least not on the level of Warp Travel. I can't exactly recall where they are now, but they've closed off Warp research after Medusa V, so that seems incredibly likely. The Tau becoming the new Imperium seems to assume that once the humans and Eldar go, they'll be able to expand without issue, even though Necrons, Orks and Tyranids are still a massive problem for them. Plus, with their tiny size, they've already fractured, with their best general rebelling, so at any rate, it seems highly unlikely they'd rapidly expand enough for the Chaos Gods to target them, despite the fact that a huge portion of the population would be far harder to effect.

Meanwhile, there's other races that could easily expand into the power gap, and are already magnitudes larger than Tau, who just don't get nearly as much focus. The Q'Orl Swarmhood are an absolutely massive race of bugs that are doing research into the Warp and Navigators, and would make the absolute perfect target for any of the Chaos Gods to try corrupt. The Hrud are literally the avatars of death and decay, causing it wherever they go, and there's massive populations of them that would spread rapidly in the fall of the Imperium, and I'm not sure how Nurgle hasn't noticed them already. The Rak'Gol are insane murdering pirates who make the Orks look like they're from Star Trek, so Khorne has a perfect target there. Besides that, there's endless other Xenos races who just don't get much mention, but are as big if not bigger than the Tau. While GW focuses on the Tau in the narrative, the Chaos Gods really don't seem like they would. Why focus on a tiny empire with no true Warp travel, with a massive population and leaders that are naturally resistant to you, when you have other bigger meals with no lackings in the Warp presence department.

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Chaos in the 40k Universe may be weakened, but it exists in every reality, so it wont be killed, the gods would likely look for a new target, the most obvious being the Tau, while they have little warp presence they still have some, and they are an expanding species unlike all of the other 40k main races, so Tau make the most sense to try to corrupt and stagnate like the Imperium, unless some other race expands to fill the gap.

In what possible way are Tau the next target of the Chaos Gods, should man and Eldar fall? They're a race that's got a naturally small warp presence, small enough to be of note, so that's a deterrent to targeting them, while being one of the less populous species compared to, say, Orks, Q'orl or Hrud.

Sorry thought I had replied to this already.

Ok so the imperium falls, that leaves a massive vacuum, Eldar are on the brink of dieing out, necrons will take time, and are immune to chaos, nids too, orks too etc.


So that leaves the Tau Empire, dynamic and expansive exactly like the Imperium pre heresy, knows very little about chaos, just like the old imperium, has so many varied races within its ranks and would spread to fill the gap the imperials have left much faster (proving FTL happens) than any of the other races bar orks, if the Tau empires reaches a large enough size, weak warp presence of the Tau wont matter, the gods will notice, and latch on, try to corrupt them from outside or inside.

So if the IOM goes, the Tau are the next logical race to try to corrupt.

But the Tau DON'T have FTL, or at least not on the level of Warp Travel. I can't exactly recall where they are now, but they've closed off Warp research after Medusa V, so that seems incredibly likely. The Tau becoming the new Imperium seems to assume that once the humans and Eldar go, they'll be able to expand without issue, even though Necrons, Orks and Tyranids are still a massive problem for them. Plus, with their tiny size, they've already fractured, with their best general rebelling, so at any rate, it seems highly unlikely they'd rapidly expand enough for the Chaos Gods to target them, despite the fact that a huge portion of the population would be far harder to effect.

Meanwhile, there's other races that could easily expand into the power gap, and are already magnitudes larger than Tau, who just don't get nearly as much focus. The Q'Orl Swarmhood are an absolutely massive race of bugs that are doing research into the Warp and Navigators, and would make the absolute perfect target for any of the Chaos Gods to try corrupt. The Hrud are literally the avatars of death and decay, causing it wherever they go, and there's massive populations of them that would spread rapidly in the fall of the Imperium, and I'm not sure how Nurgle hasn't noticed them already. The Rak'Gol are insane murdering pirates who make the Orks look like they're from Star Trek, so Khorne has a perfect target there. Besides that, there's endless other Xenos races who just don't get much mention, but are as big if not bigger than the Tau. While GW focuses on the Tau in the narrative, the Chaos Gods really don't seem like they would. Why focus on a tiny empire with no true Warp travel, with a massive population and leaders that are naturally resistant to you, when you have other bigger meals with no lackings in the Warp presence department.

All of those races lack the dynamic nature of Tau and the expansionist nature too, sure they would get bigger, maybe much much bigger, but at the end of the day its the Tau that would expand the fastest and attempt to fill the power vacuum, each sphere would keep expanding turning into exponential growth, what would a massive tau empire look like in 1k years time, possible hundreds of races within the Empire, trillions of Tau, Kroot etc. all the while the Gods are watching the Empire for an chance to corrupt it.

None of those other races can stand up the Imperium, so what chance would they have against a Tau Imperium.

The Tau are a bad roll away from being exterminated, so forgive me for laughing at the idea of a Tau Imperium.

Tyran wrote:
The Tau are a bad roll away from being exterminated, so forgive me for laughing at the idea of a Tau Imperium.

Thats a bad roll with the Imperium still around, if the imperium is exterminated, the only faction that has the resources to expand to fill that gap quickly is the Tau, as OP said, no eldar either.

What you guys are simply not getting is when the Imperials go, all those planets along the Tau empires borders are ripe for exploitation, something the Tau have been shown to be capable of in the past, if we assume it is M41 then the Imperium falls, thats chaos crippled too, nids have already been dealth with by the Tau (doesnt stop more turning up of course) and the Tau are also able to deal with the Orks, so they no longer have any real threats for the short term, this allows them to move past the 5/6/7th phase expansions with little to nothing to threaten them, chuck on another 1k years and you would have a Tau Imperium with tech that most likely out classes even necrons (given the rate they innovate).

Sad thing is I personally dont even like Tau and dont think they fit the theme of 40k very well, but all this is supported by the fluff, give Tau time, and they WILL win, they are basically the Batman prep time race.

Nids would have wiped out the Tau if they hadn't gotten incredibly lucky with the Imperium helping by chance.

 Formosa wrote:

Tyran wrote:
The Tau are a bad roll away from being exterminated, so forgive me for laughing at the idea of a Tau Imperium.

Thats a bad roll with the Imperium still around, if the imperium is exterminated, the only faction that has the resources to expand to fill that gap quickly is the Tau, as OP said, no eldar either.

Except Necrons, Ghazghkull, Tyranids. The Tau have never experienced large scale warfare, Kraken alone would have wiped out the Tau Empire, and they are next to the largest Necron dynasty. The most likelly outcome is that they get conquered by Imotekh.

Tyran wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

Tyran wrote:
The Tau are a bad roll away from being exterminated, so forgive me for laughing at the idea of a Tau Imperium.

Thats a bad roll with the Imperium still around, if the imperium is exterminated, the only faction that has the resources to expand to fill that gap quickly is the Tau, as OP said, no eldar either.

Except Necrons, Ghazghkull, Tyranids. The Tau have never experienced large scale warfare, Kraken alone would have wiped out the Tau Empire, and they are next to the largest Necron dynasty. The most likelly outcome is that they get conquered by Imotekh.

Sigh.... necrons take to long to mobilise/wake up, that gives at least centuries of expansion.

Ghazghull is not a threat for at least centuries given his location and the current conflict he is embroiled in.

Kraken... meh, the imperium would be wiped out if every nid turned up at terra... see how pointless that comparison is?

People, I'm thinking of abandoning this particular discussion based on what seems to be all of your irrational hatred of the Tau and inability to see the core trait of the race is rapid expansion and innovation.

The fact, and don't mistake this for opinion, is that when a power vacuum is left by the imperials, the tau jump on it incredibly quickly, this is shown throughout tau fluff.

Lastly, please refrain from frankly stupid comments like "x would wipe them out easily" without considering how "x" would even get to the tau, know they were expanding etc. It adds nothing to the discussion.

 Formosa wrote:

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Chaos in the 40k Universe may be weakened, but it exists in every reality, so it wont be killed, the gods would likely look for a new target, the most obvious being the Tau, while they have little warp presence they still have some, and they are an expanding species unlike all of the other 40k main races, so Tau make the most sense to try to corrupt and stagnate like the Imperium, unless some other race expands to fill the gap.

In what possible way are Tau the next target of the Chaos Gods, should man and Eldar fall? They're a race that's got a naturally small warp presence, small enough to be of note, so that's a deterrent to targeting them, while being one of the less populous species compared to, say, Orks, Q'orl or Hrud.

Sorry thought I had replied to this already.

Ok so the imperium falls, that leaves a massive vacuum, Eldar are on the brink of dieing out, necrons will take time, and are immune to chaos, nids too, orks too etc.


So that leaves the Tau Empire, dynamic and expansive exactly like the Imperium pre heresy, knows very little about chaos, just like the old imperium, has so many varied races within its ranks and would spread to fill the gap the imperials have left much faster (proving FTL happens) than any of the other races bar orks, if the Tau empires reaches a large enough size, weak warp presence of the Tau wont matter, the gods will notice, and latch on, try to corrupt them from outside or inside.

So if the IOM goes, the Tau are the next logical race to try to corrupt.

But the Tau DON'T have FTL, or at least not on the level of Warp Travel. I can't exactly recall where they are now, but they've closed off Warp research after Medusa V, so that seems incredibly likely. The Tau becoming the new Imperium seems to assume that once the humans and Eldar go, they'll be able to expand without issue, even though Necrons, Orks and Tyranids are still a massive problem for them. Plus, with their tiny size, they've already fractured, with their best general rebelling, so at any rate, it seems highly unlikely they'd rapidly expand enough for the Chaos Gods to target them, despite the fact that a huge portion of the population would be far harder to effect.

Meanwhile, there's other races that could easily expand into the power gap, and are already magnitudes larger than Tau, who just don't get nearly as much focus. The Q'Orl Swarmhood are an absolutely massive race of bugs that are doing research into the Warp and Navigators, and would make the absolute perfect target for any of the Chaos Gods to try corrupt. The Hrud are literally the avatars of death and decay, causing it wherever they go, and there's massive populations of them that would spread rapidly in the fall of the Imperium, and I'm not sure how Nurgle hasn't noticed them already. The Rak'Gol are insane murdering pirates who make the Orks look like they're from Star Trek, so Khorne has a perfect target there. Besides that, there's endless other Xenos races who just don't get much mention, but are as big if not bigger than the Tau. While GW focuses on the Tau in the narrative, the Chaos Gods really don't seem like they would. Why focus on a tiny empire with no true Warp travel, with a massive population and leaders that are naturally resistant to you, when you have other bigger meals with no lackings in the Warp presence department.

All of those races lack the dynamic nature of Tau and the expansionist nature too, sure they would get bigger, maybe much much bigger, but at the end of the day its the Tau that would expand the fastest and attempt to fill the power vacuum, each sphere would keep expanding turning into exponential growth, what would a massive tau empire look like in 1k years time, possible hundreds of races within the Empire, trillions of Tau, Kroot etc. all the while the Gods are watching the Empire for an chance to corrupt it.

None of those other races can stand up the Imperium, so what chance would they have against a Tau Imperium.

But the Tau they lack FTL, and can't do any more research into Warp Travel as the Ethereals have banned that, so fast expansion isn't there thing. Plus, they're still small enough that they can easily be wiped out be a large WAAAGH! or something similar, and they've already had one of their greatest leaders rebel against them. Just to take, say, the Q'Orl, on the other hand, they're rushing into researching Warp travel (which makes them better targets to be corrupted in addition to that), plus they're also quite expansionist. Same with the Rak'Gol, they've been expanding on a massive push, eradicating endless species.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Formosa wrote:

Tyran wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

Tyran wrote:
The Tau are a bad roll away from being exterminated, so forgive me for laughing at the idea of a Tau Imperium.

Thats a bad roll with the Imperium still around, if the imperium is exterminated, the only faction that has the resources to expand to fill that gap quickly is the Tau, as OP said, no eldar either.

Except Necrons, Ghazghkull, Tyranids. The Tau have never experienced large scale warfare, Kraken alone would have wiped out the Tau Empire, and they are next to the largest Necron dynasty. The most likelly outcome is that they get conquered by Imotekh.

Sigh.... necrons take to long to mobilise/wake up, that gives at least centuries of expansion.

Ghazghull is not a threat for at least centuries given his location and the current conflict he is embroiled in.

Kraken... meh, the imperium would be wiped out if every nid turned up at terra... see how pointless that comparison is?

People, I'm thinking of abandoning this particular discussion based on what seems to be all of your irrational hatred of the Tau and inability to see the core trait of the race is rapid expansion and innovation.

The fact, and don't mistake this for opinion, is that when a power vacuum is left by the imperials, the tau jump on it incredibly quickly, this is shown throughout tau fluff.

Lastly, please refrain from frankly stupid comments like "x would wipe them out easily" without considering how "x" would even get to the tau, know they were expanding etc. It adds nothing to the discussion.

I don't know if the "Tau Hate" comment is supposed to include me, but it shouldn't. I don't hate the Tau. I think they're a pretty cool faction. However, the fact that they're given a spotlight doesn't change the fact that galaxy-wide, they're pinpricks, and to say they'd become a new Imperium seems absurd, when they don't have proper FTL, they're already fragmenting and they're dealing with threats left, right, and center.

the Tau have what a hundred worlds? that's simply too small for the scale of 40k (this BTW is why I've long argued the Tau in their current form are a bad addition to 40k. they're not capable of, reasonably, appering anywhere in the galaxy) as others have noted a small tyranid splinter fleet. let alone one of the major hive fleets. would wipe them out, unlike the IoM they lack the ability to absorb a punch. sure the IoM beat Hive fleet levithan but by time it happened they'd lost a TON of worlds. The Tau would be crippled by losing a few dozen worlds.

Chaos needs these races to exist. So should they fall, the chaos gods would die.

The warp exists outside of time, so chaos would be immediately undone at every moment in time, having some kind of ultra butterfly paradox effect on the universe.

I would assume they'd be reborn in the moment of humanity's rebirth. Perhaps that's the transition from 40k -> Sigmar.

BrianDavion wrote:
the Tau have what a hundred worlds? that's simply too small for the scale of 40k (this BTW is why I've long argued the Tau in their current form are a bad addition to 40k. they're not capable of, reasonably, appering anywhere in the galaxy) as others have noted a small tyranid splinter fleet. let alone one of the major hive fleets. would wipe them out, unlike the IoM they lack the ability to absorb a punch. sure the IoM beat Hive fleet levithan but by time it happened they'd lost a TON of worlds. The Tau would be crippled by losing a few dozen worlds.

Nitpick: The IoM hasn't beaten Leviathan. It has defeated a few splinters, but Leviathan is still going strong.

A few thoughts:

1) regarding the Tau I assume that they probably aren't that big of an issue because lore wise they seem to be alot like humans in the dark age of technology, implying that at some point they might have thier own “Iron men” revolt.

And with it being 40k, it would be nearly guaranteed to happen IMO.

2) I imagine the Tarellians might well be able to expand fadter than the Tau due to how spread out they are supposed to be, and the implication that they have at least one othet planet based civilization that wasnt wiped out i. Thier original destruction by the imperium, or subsequently eaten by the nids, and are mercenaries all over the Eastern fringe. If they haf a model range they seem like they have great potential for botj expansion, and corruption by the dark gods...