Can the Tau win? What are their winning conditions?

>>50748116
Allying with the Necrons who will actually survive the 40k end times.

>>50748116
Unlimited
Plot
Armor

>>50748116
Their win condition is no other faction actually committing to wiping them out and waiting until entropy takes the universe.

Realistically, no. Even if they could defeat (Chaos, Orks) or assimilate (Mankind, Eldar) most other factions they have no means of overcoming Tyranid and Necron ever.

once the riptide is mass produced, those imperials wont stand a chance
also, their biggest weakness is size, if they survive until they can amass enough manpower and resources they will succeed. currently, as many tau-haters will be quick to point out, they are still too small to harm the galaxy at large but everyones gotta start somewhere, even the imperium didnt start overnight
alas, the odds of them doing that is the same as the empire throwing enough men to nip them in the bud; 0%

>>50748116
Trying to stay alive while these vastly more populous, advanced, and aggressive races wipe each other out.

then the main tyranid force arrives and eats them.

>>50748159

The Riptide has already been retconned to be a mass production unit, and it still wasn't enough, hence the Stormsurge.

Yeah, totally, they already killed Slaanesh.

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What is with this win condition bullshit? Half the factions in 40k have the win condition survival - the Imperium, the Eldar, the Tau, to some degree the Necrons - and the other half have the win condition 'fuck shit up' - the Orks, the Tyranids, Chaos, and to some degree the Necrons.

That's it. That's all there is. It's the most simple, Chaos vs. Order narrative that you can have, that has been repeating itself for thousands of years of humans telling it. Ordered civilizations want to survive against the chaotic factions that only want to bring them low. It is simple, but it makes a lot of fucking sense for a setting for a wargame, where you want factions to fight but there not to be much change to the status quo - the survival-committed factions will never waste resources destroying a faction, the destruction-oriented factions will never be quite united enough to bring the survivalist factions low.

In that sense, you can argue there is no win condition beyond continued existence for any faction, because nothing they do will ever change the setting to require anything beyond that.

>>50748147
Didn't the Tau manage to make a poison that subdued a tyranid invasion?
Given the time left alone, and their startling technological advancement, anything's possible right?

>>50748228
Isn't the riptide still an elite unit, with the crisis still being their stand-by?

ONCE THE SUPREMACY ARMOR IS MASS-PRODUCED, THOSE IMPERIALS WON'T STAND A CHANCE

>>50748279

The Riptide is an elite unit but they've begun being featured en masse. They started out as an experimental unit that you rarely saw. It's because GW is making every faction have a bunch of huge units fighting in the background now.

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Create an Abominable Intelligence. Ave Machine!

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The Tau are not the true masters. Someone has pulled the strings behind the Ethereals. Someone uplifted them and are likely to be their guardian angels protecting them with astonishing strikes of luck again and again. Their victory condition depends on the wish of their invisible benefactors.

>>50748698
HL2 had an interesting story, but come on, we know the only benefactors are the GW writers. They're far too careless about dropping hints for a secret to actually go unnoticed in the fluff.

>>50748900

The most obvious candidates are the Eldar. Other than that, they have been extremely ambiguous with the origins and powers of the Ethereals.

>>50748698
Tzeench?

>>50748698
The Old Ones?

>>50748159
I fucking hate the tau. "their civilisation is small" is not a legitimate flaw especially when it's obvious that it's never going to affect them since they sell too well.

>>50748116
Not getting uppity and letting the other factions destroy one another. What people miss about the Tau is that they're not a serious contender, but will be the ones to pick up the pieces after everyone else buttfuck themselves and each other into oblivion. Then they too will end up buttfucking themselves into a parody of themselves, like the Imperium did before them, and the Eldar before them.

>>50748116
>takes out space katana
>nothing personal
> ... imperial

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>>50748116
possible closing of access to the warp with the necrons

not geting wiped by tyranids

dramatically expanding to capture large chunks of a collapsing the imperium

exterminating all orks/ somehow enslaving them

and finaly use there immunity to chaos and tech to build a stable and sustainable empire surpassing the imperium man at its peak

>>50749220
>tau skin is blue

Coincidence?

>>50755669
>>50748159
>>50748279

Why would Tau refer the humans as "imperials"? Aren't the they themselves the Tau EMPIRE? Tau themselves should be the imperials from tau perspective, and men just men.

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>>50748116

>Create Battlesuits so advanced the Ad Mech literally shit themselves and do a suicide mission just to acquire some of the Tau tech.

>Still can't go FTL in a spaceship


Gotta love my blueberries

>>50753593
You know that the flaws of all the factions in the game aren't really legitimate, right? It's got absolutely no impact whatsoever on how the game is played, and the fluff is a poorly managed inconsistent clusterfuck that appeals to people precisely because it's large enough - and static enough - that there's probably something in that mess that someone will like.