So, I hear a lot of shit talking on all sides about the Tau,

>>50749036
Yes

currently, yes
but the gap shrinks every day, the window the other factions have to destroy them completely shrinks everyday, and it seems like everyone is so busy killing each other, that they dont have time for the tau

>judge me by size you will

>>50749036
Yes and no

They are actually pretty small compared to the rest of the major factions, but that doesn't actually mean anything. Because all the other factions are spread so thin or decentralized to such an extent that all arguments about how "easy" it would be for them to crush the Tau Empire are purely academic.

Take the IoM for example. Yes they could just bury the Tau in bodies, if the Imperium could ever pull itself together for a concentrated and focused assault. But they can't because they have countless other problems to deal with and thus the only half assed Crusades they throw against the Tau fail.

Everyone think's the Tau are too small and too new to be a bother, this is their biggest strength. Because they can actually become big and strong in (relative) safety while the other factions mostly ignore them. And as most of the other factions are either stagnant or dying a slow death, this all plays into the expansionist Tau's hands in the long run

>>50749154
that falls apart when you remember that orks, tyranids and necrons don't have those restrictions, and only attack the tau in manageable numbers because of narrative convenience

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>>50749036

The Tau fill the same place as humans often do in many other settings. Young, vibrant, curious, daring species and rising star of the Galaxy. In any other setting they would be humans that typically fuel the whole "Humanty, Fuck Yeah"!

Humans in 40k fill the other role. The role of the decadent, stagnant, spent alien Empire which may or not may have fought against greater threats than themselves.

>>50749192
and the shielding of those larger crumbling empires, which are well crumbling.

>>50749192
Orks are just as fractions as the IoM if not more. Their whole niche is "There guys would have won already if not for constant infighting"

Nid's are still showing up, otherwise with their numerical advantage they would have eaten everyone else and not just the Tau

Crons are still waking up otherwise with their tech advantage they would have atomized everyone else and not just the Tau. And New!Crons ARE prone to factionalism if not on the scale of the other races

>>50749036
Really, they're only strength for now is that the other factions are too busy killing each other to notice the budding race. Tau also have a more flexible mindset than most other races too.

However, even though they very much believed themselves to be the cream of the crop in terms of societies, they are just now coming to realize exactly HOW outmatched they are by literally everyone. That's why they commissioned the Riptide to be built, as a counter to Imperial Knights and such. Their navy is still lagging, however, and they have little defense against an Exterminatus as far as I know. And their individual warriors are still weak as shit.

Long story short, they have potential to become a big deal if they can avoid dying long enough. But right now, they really are outmatched on nearly every front.

>>50749036
>>50749077
This. If any faction really wanted to end the Tau, they could, but there are more important things to deal with at the moment (Black Crusades, Tyranid Hive Fleets, Waaagh Ghazghkulls and such). However, this won't be the case forever.

>>50749319
Say what you will, but the Tau only control about 115 worlds. Compare that to the million or so active Imperial worlds and the X number of splinter human worlds.

It's going to be awhile before the Tau catch up. Most likely, the Imperium will implode before that happens.

>>50749036
The Tau are smaller than several other Xenos empires that are in the fluff.

They really are 'That' outmatched.

How can Eldar be near extinct when a thriving race like Tau has less numbers than them?

>>50749351

Games Workshop has no grasp of scale. There aren't nearly enough space marines to have a significant impact on the galaxy as they've had, and many of their "apocalyptic" battles barely surpass WW2 troop numbers.

>>50749036

They're a hard knot in the wood. Tau are numerically inferior, but holy shit is their space DENSE. The interior of their stellar empire is owned completely by them and their auxiliaries. And they push everything out of it when they complete a "sphere" of expansion. Invasions into Tau space are thrown out because the Tau keep their major supply lines so close, and reinforcements so readily available. The reason the Damocles Crusade faltered was because they got stuck in this, the Tau keeping the Imperium forces rooted to a singular planet and halting the crusade's momentum.

>>50749036
Yes, they were originally meant to be an example of one of the thousands of small civilizations on the border of the Emperium.
That's been retconned a bit, due to their popularity, so they are a "major" faction. But they're still BY FAR the smallest.

>>50749474
Were there any other xeno/separatist factions that were mentioned but never gained fan traction?

>>50749385

Because GW doesn't understand how numbers work.

These are the same guys who gave the Land Raider armor on par with a WW2 tank, retconned the Necrons a form of space travel that is only slighty better than what 1960s America could have built, claim that 100 space marines can somehow conquer and hold a thousand worlds without support (it only takes 1/10th of a space marine to defend a planet! But it only takes one fairly large ork to kill a space marine in melee, so...) and thinks that a reasonable amount of technological development over the course of 10,000 years is "we have a very slightly modified 'new' version of space marine armor, a couple new tanks that are just combining the existing parts we have in new ways, and someone found a STC template for socks that is still under review."

>>50749463
This is a good explanation. Both the Imperium and the Eldar Empire allowed xenos/rogues to exist between systems that they owned. For the Imperium it's because of how humanity expanded and had to be reconquered, in addition to its vastness. For the Eldar, they just didn't give a shit.

Meanwhile, worlds within the Tau Empire are either run by the Tau or their alien allies, which also have Tau oversight. It would be extremely difficult to get a foothold there.

>>50749463

Yep. The Damocles Gulf crusade did very well against the first few lightly defended worlds they came across in their unexpected surprise attacks (because lets be honest, the Tau were in no way prepared for the Imperium to suddenly started bombing them for the crime of TRADING WITH WILLING HUMAN WORLDS) but as soon as the Crusade hit a Sept world they lost 1/3rd of their fleet slugging it out with the orbital defenses, got stuck in an extended ground war with the Tau that was costing them bodies and space marines left and right, and were forced to sign a treaty so they could bug out before Tau navy reinforcements showed up that stood a decent chance of obliterating them entirely in their already weakened state.

The Crusade basically retreated, but did so in a way that saved face. And that was against a Tau empire with no experience fighting humans or expectation that the Imperium would attack them. They have teched up and bolstered their defenses significantly since then.

Not so much that the IoM can't burn out the Tau if they really, really put their mind to it, but enough that doing so would probably force the Imperium to give up an entire segmentum to other problems to make the attempt.

One of the biggest problems with Tau is how few worlds they have. Any significant vicory against them would be devastating to the Tau empire, so GW tries to minimize any losses they take.

>>50749537
Plenty that got mentioned, none are super popular.
Don't think Tau got *any* mention anywhere before getting added.
They were made for the sake of showing off "xeno empires", hence all the extra xeno races.

>>50749430

Nothing in science fiction (if one can call 40k that) has a proper grasp of scale. It's always bullshit.

>>50749743
I wouldn't mind a "Xeno mercenary" Mini codex, to go along with the upcoming Agents minidex.

But that's mostly because I just want to have Rak'Gol on the tabletop.

Why is there so much more porn/fetish drawings of Tau than other races?

>>50749828

only if they do a better job with it than the agends dex and fix some stats, the tau auxiliaries suck ass.

>>50749839

i don't believe there are personally. I see plenty of eldar, good amount of chaos, some ork stuff, imperials of course, and some tau, but i wouldn't say they have more than the other non imperials.

Tau are by far the most organized faction in 40k, they are light years ahead of everyone else in terms of getting their shit together, and forming a coherent and centralized power structure.

Having said that, their power base is comparatively very small. The reason they do so well is because they can focus their might to accomplish tasks, where, say, the Imperium's might is mostly spent just trying to hold itself together fighting a war in every direction against everyone else.

Every other faction would be able to kill the others if they got their shit together, but with the Tau they have their shit together but aren't strong enough to kill everyone else.

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>>50750147
>Tau are by far the most organized faction in 40k
U fuckin wot?

Look, I get that you like the Tau and they have their place, but don't overstate your merits here.

>>50749565
desu the weakest point in 40k is the space marine wanking

they could have just been tough motherfuckers that exist on the fringes and are called in when shit goes south, or for shit like boarding alien cruisers or boarding actions and stuff

but no, they had to go with the "spaaaace muhreens can take a whole city by themselves, and 100 can take a whole system, the whole imperium rests on the backs of like 3 dudes!!"

like really most of the rest of the setting almost sort of works except for the spaec muhreens - which should have been written as an elite military unit for specialized encounters and not as the one man armies they are

>>50749036

The Tau could be wiped out by any of the following:

1. A full scale Imperial Crusade.
2. A full scale Black Crusade
3. A full scale Hive Fleet.
4. A full scale Necron Dynasty.
5. A full scale WAAAGH!

At the very least they would lose several septs fighting forces of those size. So, yes, they are outmatched and tiny compared to most other factions. Still... they are fun and enrich the setting, so I don't get why people bitch about them so much.

It's also worth remembering that they are representative of the minor alien Empires which exist scattered around the galaxy. The existence of the Tau means the 40K galaxy is much more complicated than the table top fluff usually implies. It's not all just Eldar, Orks, and Spess Mahriens.

>>50750413
>should have been written as an elite military unit for specialized encounters and not as the one man armies they are

The problem was that GW wrote themselves into a corner very early on with the "only one space marine for each world in the imperium (a million), but still they suffice" line. This risked making them irrelevant to the setting unless they were one man armies. If instead they had allowed for vast number of space marines, say one chapter per subsector, or one chapter per sector, then they could back down on the one man army fluff.

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>>50749351
115 world would make the Tau about as powerful as the Exodite Eldar. Not a significant faction but one that could do some accomplished raiding.

>>50749565
>space marine chapters are 1000 men
>one arty blast wipes a whole squad or 10 regularly

I sure enjoy how well the gameplay and lore matchup.

Really space marine chapters should be at least 10k.

>>50750551
>115 worlds

That puts them on the scale of a single Imperial Sector.

>>50750575
>one arty blast wipes a whole squad

Isn't that usually justified with "they are only wounded and out of the fight, not dead"

The Tau are an extremely minor faction, yes. But the purpose of them in the universe is to showcase their potential, and how it's almost inevitable that it will be wasted.

The Tau are a miraculous species, having progressed faster in less time than any other race on record. Even if their achievements are on a small scale, what they've achieved is nothing short of astonishing, and they could go on to do even greater things.

But they won't, because one of two things will happen. Either they will be utterly destroyed by outside forces, a Chaos warfleet or an Imperial crusade or an Orc Waagh, some enormous application of force they simply cannot survive. Or, in the process of fighting, they'll lose what gave them that potential, that hope, in the first place.

We've already seen it happen. From their bright, innocent future the Tau constantly step into deeper, darker shadows in the name of survival and victory. Rifles which terminally irradiate their own troops, questionably gained alien allies who might well be slaves, and other things which might be non canon but IMO aren't entirely out of theme.

The Tau are a bright young species on the verge of their own fall from grace, because in the darkness of the 40k universe a spark like theirs cannot survive- It will be snuffed out, or become just another cruel flame burning everything around it to stay alive.

>>50750630
>having progressed faster in less time than any other race on record
Isn't that because they were protected in a time-accelerated warp storm or something?

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>>50749800
You know why is this? If they can simulate theoretical galactic formations why can't they simulate galactic human expansion?

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>>50749839
Because they secretly have vaginas on their faces.

>>50750673
Why does /tg/ like vagina so much?

>>50750653
Humans are really bad at grasping the difference between "big" and "really big" after a certain point things get so far out of our normal frame of reference we have no way to visualize or intuitively grasp the size of things. Billions of billions sounds just as large as trillions of trillions despite there being 2 orders of magnitude worth of difference.

>>50750653
>You know why is this?

Because the human brain hasn't evolved to work on a galactic scale. Think of it this way: there's about 400 billion stars in the galaxy. Now try to imagine what "400 billion" looks like in practical terms. Picture "400 billion" bricks or "400 billion" loaves of bread. Can't do it can you?

Don't feel bad, no one can.

A writer hears that we're "in the milky way galaxy" and they think, "OK I'll have my human empire rule half the galaxy". The scale of what that means, however, is totally lost on them.

>>50750653
>>50750780
>>50750805
Also doesn't help that 40k wasn't built on a hard sci-fi foundation.

>>50750780
>2 orders of magnitude

Don't know why I put that. It's actually several more than 2. It's like comparing thousands to millions.

A major advantage for the Tau in this regard, is that Chaos doesn't really care about them at all. They basically only fight if they randomly stumble across each other, since neither side has anything worth directly seeking the other out for.

>>50750833
True, and soft scifi (sci-fantasy/space-opera) is notorious for flubbing issues of scale and math.

Honestly, I didn't really get how the Imperium would work until DnD came out with the "points of light" model for their fantasy setting; with each town a small spark of civilization in vast, dark, monster haunted wilderness. Once I had that in mind, I could get how each Imperial sector is a small interstellar empire unto itself; a clump of 100-200 worlds separated from its nearest neighboring sector by vast tracts of "wilderness space".

>>50749280
>orks
>There guys would have won already if not for constant infighting
The orks already united in The Beast Arises and still eventually got raped by the Imperium. They aren't a serious threat.

>>50750630
>Or, in the process of fighting, they'll lose what gave them that potential, that hope, in the first place.
My favorite thing about40k

>>50751814

It's why I think all the people trying to say the Tau were always this Orwellian dictatorship are missing the point. If they were always shit there's nothing to lose- But the real darkness of the Tau is that all their promise for the future will come to nothing, ground to dust or set aside in order to adapt and cope with such a cruel, unforgiving universe.

>>50749674

Basically, the Tau are sitting at that point where they *could* be wiped by nearly everyone else, but it's too much of a fucking hassle to do so and it would take a lot of resources that most of them aren't willing to commit to the task.

>>50749036
>what is FTL travel

>>50749036
Yes.

They're spaceships are supposed to be shit in a way that is profoundly significant for them as well- they're slow. This means their tactics of manoeuvre warfare don't apply to space, which combined with their limited numbers and infrastructure makes them extremely vulnerable to a concerted invasion.

They were written this way, but GW didn't really think about it until the Damocles Crusade fluff when they magically had ships as good and as numerous as the Imperium.

>>50751880
Also keep in mind the NEcrons were shit before they found the gods just becasue they had no FTL and couldnt maintain an empire

>>50751886

Well, they kinda explained that in the fluff as a change in doctrine/adaptation, you can see the difference between the old and new ship designs. And they're still under performing compared to their Imperial Navy equivalents.

The real question is, where the Tau wimmin at?!

>>50752446

The Tau species have a relatively low amount of sexual dimorphism. The physical differences between Castes are more obvious than the differences between genders.

Outside of /tg/ fanart, anyway. And you could sorta justify particularly masculine or feminine Tau as Water Caste entertainers, propaganda experts or ambassadors. It would be entirely designed and artificial to achieve a purpose, but it could still happen.

>>50749828
>I just want to have Rak'Gol on the tabletop

>>50749351
Tau own over 300+ worlds

>>50749839
Because they attract weebs.

It doesn't matter because Chaos will win anyway.

>>50750648
Why does everyone think that. The warp storm just made it too dangerous for imperial ships to travel through, so they just moved on from T'au. Nothing more

>>50749192
in the case of the tyranids, its still true.
behemoth was fighting against the IOM, tau, necrons, eldar, chaos, and probably other factions all at once. thats a big reason why it failed and why the tau were able to survive the nid invasion of their space. albiet with several planets sacrificed

>>50753409

Right, so they were protected for 8,000 years by a warp storm that kept other races from showing up and destroying them.

Give the Imperium 8,000 years without every Tom, Dick and Harry trying to fuck them over and I guarantee they'll produce an army capable of conquering the galaxy.

Want proof? That's exactly what happened, except it only took humanity 5,000 years.

>>50753404
You spelled Orks weird

>>50750442
>1. A full scale Imperial Crusade.

No, the Tau defeated two massive Imperial crusades. The last crusade featured one of the largest tank battles in Imperial history

>3. A full scale Hive Fleet.

The Tau defeated Hive Fleet Gorgon.

And before you speak, other hive fleets needed a multi-factional effort to defeat.

>5. A full scale WAAAGH!

The Tau defeated several large Waaaagh!. Like War of Dakka Waaaagh! and the Waaagh! of the War of Great Confederation.

You know nothing about the lore. Get out.

>>50749036
The simple fact of the matter is that of you like TAU, You're weak And your bloodline is weak.
They won't pass their genes to the next generation, And neither will you.

>>50750630
>The Tau are an extremely minor faction, yes.

Recent lore says the Tau became a major power in the galaxy.

>>50753529
Ya'll need to start posting lore. Because anon's opinions are biased as shit.

>Warboss Grukk Face-rippa leads a rampage against the Tau Empire! The Tau have seen plenty of conflict during their brief ascension to the status of major player in the far future, and quite a lot of that conflict has been with Orks.

-WD 108 (digital)

White Dwarf issues around and after the Kauyon and Mont'ka releases claim that the Tau are among the major players in the galactic scene. One of the super powers vying for galactic domination.

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So, uh, on the subject of Tau and power... My store is going to be starting doing Kill Teams, so I picked up pic related. What's the best 200 point Kill Team I can make out of this?

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>>50753574
Proceeding further. The white dwarf articles (picture related) say that had the Imperium and the Tau put their differences aside and allied, they would become an unstoppable force in the galaxy. But alas the reason why this didn't happen is Imperial unreasonable racism and xenophobia. The Tau extended the hand of friendship to the Imperium countless times and the Imperium either ignored it or slapped it aside.

>>50750805
"The human brain hasn't evolved for that" is the nerd's own reductio ad hitlerum.

>>50753602
I like how you rephrased that to ignore the fact that the Tau are also unwilling to accept aliens as equals.

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>>50753602
further further.

The Mont'ka war features one of the largest tank battles ever fought by the Imperium (which they lost by the way. Longstrike FTW).

Plus the Imperial Knights saw that the Tau large suits were more deadly than the Ork and traitor walkers. The Knight House fighting in that war lost more knights to the Tau weaponry than they ever lost fighting in the Horus Heresy.

>>50753638
>unhealthy interest in warp technology

chaos tau when

>>50753602
Tau's idea of extending the hand of friendship is subjugating planets and gelding milions.

>>50753602
It's not like the imperium are just assholes.
The imperium's structure is supposed to be simply what is necessary to survive in the universe.
Their hatred of xenos is learned behavior after the daot and hh.
The tau really break this narrative though.

>>50753602
>Imperium aren't actually good they're just evil faggots and anything good about them is just propaganda from the Imperium's point of view
>TAU ARE SO GOOD THOUGH THEYRE NOT EVIL ANY EVIL TAU FLUFF IS JUST IMPERIAL PROPAGANDA TAU ARE TOTALLY GOOD THERES NO WAY ITS TAU PROPAGANDA

Taufags

>>50753649
In the Cain novel "The Greater Good", the Tau as a token of goodwill, rebuilt an Imperial world and clothed and fed its populace free of charge.

>‘What haven’t I been told?’ he asked, with an understandable touch of asperity.

>‘The tau have made an offer of reparations, which His Excellency the governor is minded to accept,’ I said, in my most diplomatic tone.

>‘Because His Excellency the governor is a self-obsessed, inbred imbecile, who can’t see the trap for the honey,’ Zyvan added, not diplomatically at all.

>‘What sort of reparations?’ Braddick asked, in tones which told me all too clearly that he shared the Lord General’s opinion of the Emperor’s anointed representative on Quadravidia.

>‘Assistance with the reconstruction effort,’ I told him. ‘Resources, expertise and civilian advisors to coordinate everything with the Administratum and the Adeptus Mechanicus.’

>‘Preaching subversion and heresy the whole time, no doubt,’ Braddick snorted.

>‘No doubt,’ I agreed, ‘and I’d keep a particularly close eye on a bunch of human renegades calling themselves “Facilitators” if I were you.’

>‘You can count on it,’ he assured me,

-Cain Novel (The Greater Good)

The Tau are not the bad guys here.

>>50753662
>what is necessary to survive
>'FUCK TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT JUST STAY THE SAME FOREVER"

yuuup

>>50753677
That is simply what the lore says anon.
The tau are just mary sues, they're written poorly.

>>50753696
The mechanicum are a good example of that actually. The imperium has to ally with those crazies otherwise all of their shit would be breaking down.

>xenosfags complain about the Imperium refusing to give diplomacy a chance

Are you guys fucking retarded or do you just know zero human fluff about 40K?

>>50753677
Don't strawman

>>50753693
>He, at least, was still alive. But there were only so many times he could survive battle, and each time he fought he seemed to leave parts of himself behind. The last time had been the worst. It had been on Mu’gulath Bay, in the ruins of a hive, with thousands of gue’la refugees streaming from the burning city. The Imperials had fired indiscriminately, killing many of their own kind. He had been trying to protect them with his Stormsurge when he’d been hit. It was the enemy you never saw that were the most dangerous, he’d always said, and he’d ignored his own wisdom. Ch’an had spent so long in the rehabilitation ward, he had thought he would be refused permission to return to the battlefront. He had begged for active service, and in the end his commander had come to his bed.

We see here a Tau Stormsurge commander protecting Imperial civilians from their own side. This Tau hero protected the humans from those who were suppose to protect them.

Can you give me an example of an Imperial doing the same for xenos? Putting themselves in danger out of empathy for a fellow sentient life?

This goes to show that the Tau cherish all life regardless of its source. Avoiding its loss whenever it's possible and economical

>>50753662
>The tau really break this narrative though.
Considering their methods and ideology? not really.

They're less overt about it, but ultimately pretty horrible. In later fluff especially. TIDF here just takes their fluff literally to harvest replies from people who don't recognize his posting style.

>>50753724
Nobody is complaining. Just pointing out how things would have been if the Imperium wasn't so xeno hating.

>>50753751

If the Imperium wasn't so xeno hating it'd be DEAD you fucking idiot, because xenos driving humanity to extinction was what prompted the Great Crusade to begin with.

>>50753751

>Imperium decides to be less xeno-hating and accepts the Tau into an alliance
>Necron invasion force shows up
>Imperium: C'mon allies, these guys are bad news, let's get 'em!
>Tau: Foolish gue'la, we must initiate diplomacy first
>Imperium: Diplomacy? These guys don't fuck around you know, they don't care about diplomacy, they're just out to kill us
>Tau: What an unenlightened attitude. We will not commit our forces to this misguided genocide of another species

And let's not get started on the Tau allowing a Genestealer Cult to start up on one of their Sept worlds....

>>50753741
Less horrible than the Imperium if only for the fact that the Tau don't hate alien life and feel empathy towards it. Eldar are also capable of empathy towards alien races. More than once an Eldar went out of his way to save a human's life to his/her own determinant.

Heck, even the Necrons should some consideration and respect to alien lifeforms that they deemed worthy and honourable.

So what's the excuse of humanity? The Necrons and Eldar suffered more than human at the hand of xenos across their million of years lifespans.

>>50753738
This is all just evidence that the tau are conceptually shit.
The tau are simply the good guys, with nearly the best tech, the best tactics, the most unified people, constantly innovating, treat their subjects like fucking kings compared to every other faction.
Their only drawback is their smallness, and that doesn't effect them at all because of plot armour.

>>50753784
That's due lack of knowledge. If the Imperium came along and explained things to the Tau and showed them examples of what they are facing, then things will be alright.

How many times did the Eldar have to teach humanity about the dangers of the galaxy, usually by beating it into them like a dumb dog-animal.? Too many times.

Admech humans just keep awakening tomb worlds and messing with Chaos artefacts, then the Eldar have to clean the mess. The Eldar are basically taking care of one big toddler.

>>50753802
They are not good guys on the higher levels. Their civs are just not being educated into being hateful bastards. That's all. (Only the Enclave is legit good guys).

>>50753785
To hammer the nail in.

The Necron triach praetorians wore symbols of the Blood Angels and trophies from the marines to honour the Blood Angels courage and valour.

The Silent King wore a deathmask of Sanguinius partially to honour the man-god he was. Also he has no hatred towards mankind and in fact wishes that they would survive and become vassals of his reborn empire.

Did the Emperor ever honour a xenos? No never. And the Silent King has more reason to hate alien life than the Emperor.

Humanity is unique in its extreme hatred of other lifeforms.

>>50753877
>The Necron triach praetorians wore symbols of the Blood Angels and trophies from the marines to honour the Blood Angels courage and valour.
that sounds so gay I'm surprised its blood angels and not ultramarines

Think about how far Tau tech has come in the last few years. (decades? centuries?)

When they first saw imperial titans they thought they were some sort of joke but after fighting them they realized they could ADAPT and they started building giant anime weeaboo suits to counter imperial stuff

now they have riptides, stormsurges and that supremacy armor all in a very short time span. I even remember hearing somewhere they want to eventually give all fire warriors rail rifles (eventually as in never because of the crunch)

point is, they advance fast as fuck and while they might be small, by the time they get big enough for the imperium to get concerned, Tau units might be leagues ahead of imperial weapons, the good ones being "irreplaceable relics" compared to the Tau gear which can be churned out en mass

...not that GW would let that happen, cant have space marines get sniped by random tau scrubs

>>50749297
>and they have little defense against an Exterminatus as far as I know
Uh, can anyone counter/survive Exterminatus?

>>50753932

Some extreme xenos tech can. Necron Orrery can supernova a sun and take out the fleet (and planet) before the torpedos hit, DE can escape to the Webway, etc.

>>50749036
Yes, they are.
Even the Eldar, in their tiny numbers, could exterminate the tau to every last fishface, if they wanted to.

>>50749430
>>50749800
I always mentally ad a couple zeroes behind most numbers any 40k stuff has in it.
So 15 million troops, becomes around 15 billion or so.

>>50750780
That's because biologically, we are still hunter gatherers to whom a herd of 500 food critters was "big fucking number".

>>50753488
Humanity was never able to conquer the galaxy just by their own merits.
The DAoT humanity lived under the shadow of the pre fall Eldar empire, that was the uncontested ruler of the galaxy.
Only when the Eldar fell due to their own decadence, did humanity have the chance to conquer the galaxy. They gained that chance due to the failure of the Eldar, not the merits of their own work.

Nothing humans have ever made, comes even close to rivaling the Pre-fall Eldar.

>>50753529
That is flat out impossible, seeing how the Tau lack the means of reaching most of the galaxy.

>>50753502
Have you not kept up with the new 40k lore?

Not even the infinite Orks can stop Chaos. They'll just be gobbled up and become toys for the Chaos gods to play with.

40k is now basically stuck in an endless cycle of Chaos destroying the universe and recreating it endlessly, or some shite.

>>50754036
Tell that to GW.

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Soon.

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"The stasis bombs used by Paradox Squadrons are deadly weapons whose unique destructive force can be combined to tear a rent in the space-time continuum, creating a dangerous temporal anomaly. Several bombs must be delivered at the same time and in a specific pattern in order to achieve the desired effect, requiring split-second timing and perfect formation flying by the Sun Shark crews taking part in the attack. A target caught in the resulting anomaly is propelled through the universal time-stream, reappearing in the same location but millions of years in the future or in the past. Occasionally, however, the attack backfires, and an earlier version of the target blinks into existence, with any damage it has suffered so far in the battle miraculously repaired."

>>50754142
>blow up stars on purpose to try and collect energy
>try to make it in to a weapon since that fails
Totally good guys.

>>50749210
>mental note
>poison all of the other player characters at the start of your next Rogue Trader game
>to ensure loyalty

>>50749036
The entire Tau race are walking talking Mary sues who should have been btfo long ago but that's what happens when the entire writing staff at GW are communists.

>>50750195
He does have a point though. The Tau are small and dense enough to hold together unlike every other faction except nids, and have the Greater Good brainwashing
>IoM has administratum shit
>Orks are Orks (though grazhgrull is a thing)
>Eldar are split into craftworlds and kabals
>newcrons have dynasties and arnt fully awake yet

>>50753638
>Longstrike FTW

Pask is objectively the better tank ace, though. He commands a lumbering box tank armed with a conventional cannon that has to be aimed manually; Longstrike commands a super future hover tank armed with a giant railgun with crazy computer assistance, and still can't knock out Pask.

Giver Pask and his crew a Hammerhead and they'd probably solo entire tank battalions.

>>50749674
Small correction, the Damocles Guld Crusade was getting its ass kicked, but a major reason for their retreat was because they needed everything they could get to help defend against Hivefleet Behemoth.

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How long will it be before they create their own God as result of spawning an Abominable Intelligence?

>>50754261
Never. Tau Plot Armour is too strong.

>>50754268

What if it is a good Abominable Intelligence?

>>50754261
They already have created AI. Isn't one of Farsights eight commanders an AI?

>>50754295

An enagram, but it isn't a rampant one.

>>50754295
It's one of those weird consciousness chips, so not quite an AI, just a dead Tau in digital form. They did the same for Puretide.

In terms of true AI pretty much the best they have are Drones, which aren't much more than targeting systems.

>>50754305

On the field, yes. However, do we know if they have AI directing things behind the scenes? Do they have AI making strategic and industrial plans, running supplies, calculating possibilities for the Tau?

>>50749800
40K is particularly bad at it.

>>50754305
>>50754341
They do have better AI than drones, but things like their city intelligences work on the same principles as the drones. Tau AI is all about small devices networking efficiently to produce insane amounts of computing power.

The actual decision making abilities of their AI aren't great, and it has no sense of self or anything since again each intelligence is a transient network made from whatever Tau computers were nearby at the time, but they have done some pretty spectacular things, like the city logistics AI of some Tau city overloading power conduits throughout the city to create constructive interference centered on the imperial tanks that were rampaging through it, cooking all of them. You know, with equipment not actually intended to do anything like that, which is the impressive part.

They also have anti-ship missiles that are designed to make decisions about what enemies to engage, where to strike, etc. as they arrive at targets weeks after being launched, without any advance intel.

From this we can intuit that drones definitely manage supplies and logistics in the Tau empire. We also know canonically that they handle the majority of everyday manufacturing, and even repairs on existing devices are handled autonomously. In the shades of grey zone, they MIGHT produce plans for new equipment and materials, or they might not even be able to assist.

It's very unlikely that they make strategic plans though. We know that city planning, military strategy, and important political decisions all have living breathing people assigned to them, so it stands to reason that if only as a matter of prestige, drones are unwelcome there.

>>50754217
I was referring to his command ability. Pask had Longstrike outnumbered many times over and yet Longstrike held them old until victory was achieved.

>>50754449
because

>hammerhead>Leman Russ
and really there's no reason the Tau couldn't build even better MBT's with bigger railguns
Tau are good becasue they can build and upgrade shit higher than crappy ww1 tech with ancient space magic shoved in the gaps

>>50754467
S10 AP1 > S8 AP3
unless its the vanquisher, in which case it pens better, but has a slightly lower chance of causing explode

>>50753784
>stupid Tau making pacts with Necron
>they should take example of humanity fines, space marines
>*points at Blood Angels*

>>50754490
I thought we were talking fluff, obviously the stats in game are going to be different from what it realistically should be for "balance" (lol)

>>50754142
>muh Exterminatus

If the Imperium begins to fracture as result of the 13th Black Crusade and other threats like the Necrons, Orks, Tyranids, and simple Imperium rotting from inside, which Space Marines Chapters and sectors of the Imperium are the most likely to ally themselves with the Tau?

>>50754502
I have a lot of things to say about he fluff/crunch divide, but this isnt the thread for it

>>50754516
sadly a union between tau,eldar, humans would cause change, anathema to 40k

>>50753919
Back in my day the Tau were intelligent and just slapped massive railguns on their cheap
transport ships and dealt with titans that way, instead of this mecha anime shit.

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>>50749036

Just finished Fire Honour

Any other good short stories featuring Tau against Imperial Guard?

>>50753516
The tau have not in fact fought a full crusade. Both Damocles Crusades were half assed attempts to bring Imperial fringe worlds back under our control. Both of which the Imperium were in fact winning, each time however, the human forces were required to pull out their forces to deal with a real threat.

>>50754615
I keep getting different answers on that
didnt the tau take out a pair of titans?

>>50753516
>implying any of those lore examples are reasonable and aren't just examples of impossible Tau wank

Seriously? Out-adapting the Hive Fleet of the already adaptive race that specializes even more in adaptation?

>>50754655
if anyone can adapt tech to fight the nids its the tau

>>50754634
Yes, Titans however, are deployed in legions, there are dozens of them per major conflict

>>50754615

The first one, maybe. The second one, no by far. They were unable to conquer even a single Sept. The Admech was the only faction that achieved its objectives.

>>50749674
Yes and no. The problem is that they keep trying to make the Tau a credible threat, but any attempt to do so quickly hits Plot. Look at the Damocles Crusade pt 1.

Massive fleet assemble. Titan legions, thousands of ships, billions of guardsmen all just in first wave, Tau outnumbered 100 to 1
OH SHIT WARPSTORMS! Crusade splintered so like a tenth gets though, no reinforcements or heavy hitters Tau holds it's own against severely weakened Crusade fleet cut down to a tenth of it's size. Bigger threat appears so Imperium calls truce.

There, the only thing that saved the Tau was sheer dumb luck. And it worked, the Tau were just a small ass empire, completely unimportant who had no idea. And that was interesting, because you could have the slow terrifying horror as they start to realize just how big everything is.

Then came the Montkau books, and that shit all over everything. Now the Tau are "Special" and unbeatable with super technology and they're all so perfect. It started good too with the Tau thinking that killing a Chapter Master was the same thing as the King of Space Marines, so once he was dead the Space Marines were leaderless. The local forces were crushed and now the Tau are celebrating because they think that they can hit the human home systems soon (which is what they call a sector with ONE hive planet).

Then the imperial fleet shows up and the Tau shit themselves because holy crap we just wiped out like 20 billion Imperials and now there's trillions of the bastards. The Tau are good too because they sit back and try to think about it, they use tactics, but the Imperium is wise to it (and they have numbers) there's a bit of back and forth and it's all good.

>>50754683
isnt the loss of even a single titan a big deal?

>>50754709
lol no the Loss of say an Emporer Titan would be a huge loss and i'm surprised the fifth god of chaos hasn't written a story about this already.

>Brave & honorable Tau Commander nearsight takes aim with his primordial spear and fells the aggressive warmongering titan to rapturous cheers from the impressed citizens of the empire.

>>50754704
Then it all goes wrong. The plot right now is so heavily pushed towards Tau it's painful. Over and over again it's claimed that the only reason the Imperium is winning is due to attrition. Any time the Imperium start something the Tau react so quickly and so perfectly it's painful. For example, when Imperial Commander Pask surrounds Longstrike and just starts pounding him, then Longstrike. escapes. No mention how, he just does. Then Longstrike shows up a paragraph later in an ambush against Pask and takes him out with contemptuous ease. Multiply that by a hundred and that's the Tau now.

Worse yet, modern lore is painfully bad. It's like reading a bad Grey Knights story, they constantly remind you that the Tau are awesome, and powerful, and technologically advanced,and are ALWAYS in the right.

One line reads "Here was a clash not just between armies but between ideologies. The Tau were forward thinking and logical, they believed in integration and technological advancement The Imperium was stagnant, resistant to the future as they clung to a past that had long ago slipped from knowledge into superstition." I mean come on.

Tau are special, Tau are awesome, Tau can beat everything,and whenever Tau are involved, they play up the Tau a shining paragons and point out the worst flaws of everyone else.

Modern Tau fluff is just Tau wank, and it kind of makes me butthurt how Taufags latch on to it, and don't even realize how bad the new fluff is.

Tl;DR old fluff says no, but new fluff is pushing Tau sales, so yes.

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Farsight becoming a god when?

>>50754773
Just thinking about the entire load of wank that is Tau lore makes me rage the fuck out no wonder 30k is doing so much better.

>>50754835

Yeah, marines vs marines. Such a wonderful fun.

>>50749036
Honestly I never understood this reaction of 'But anyone could wipe the Tau out at any moment'.

This was true of the human species within the setting also yet no-one acts as if it is an unbelievable narrative contrivance that the Eldar Empire, an Ork Waaagh or Hrud Migration didn't wipe humans out when they were a small faction.

Even the Imperium began from a single planet so the belief that because the Tau are a small Empire at the moment they are somehow incapable of mattering or growing is mind boggling since the Imperium itself literally grew from a single planet.

It often comes across like many people seem to not understand how a polity can emerge and think that only existing super powers can ever be powerful.

>>50754845
Do gooder blue berries in a HFY universe so much fun. Truly the Tau are more cancerous than Syrian refugees.

>>50754875

I think that it is mentioned that the Tau are advancing astonishingly fast. More or less the same trope that humans often fall on in most scifi stories. In the case of the Tau, it could be also a matter of being uplifted by someone in the shadows.

>>50754773
Hmm. Sounds like Necrons some while back, Tyranids before that, Space Marines before that, Grey Knights before that... Actually. Now that I think about it. What faction hasn't had this kind of fluffery in their past at least once?

>>50754773
This is absolutely idiotic and shows that yu really haven't read much Tau fluff.

The vast majority of BL books about the Tau and the Imperium play up the Tau's Orwellian aspect (like Fire Caste) and tend to falsely equivocate that the Tau are as bad as the Imperium very quickly based off singular facts extrapolated to generalizations.

Additionally the Tau have lost numerous times, Stygian, War of Neotech, Kvariam Alpha, Voltoris and the Death Watch's recent single-handed crippling of the entire Farsight's Enclaves military command structure are just a few of their losses against the Imperium I can pull off the top of my head.

Tau are no more over-emphasised than any other faction (and are still far less narratively suffused and favoured than Ultramarines/Space Wolves/Dark Angels/Blood Angels/Loyalist Primarchs or the Emperor).

What the Tau do have is that they are the only non-Imperium faction who have anything approaching a tendency to win against the Imperium regularly in military conflicts.

>>50754877
40k's status as being so blatantly HFY is a pity. It has so many interesting and compelling other ideas but it always gets lost since at the end of the day its just the most mainstream HFY story around. A pity.

How many Xenos Empires have the Imperium exterminated? I get the feeling that they exterminated most of them just before the Horus Heresy. Could it have taken this long for other xenos to arise and fill the vacuum long after the golden age of the Imperium?

>>50754914
Don't worry i'm sure GW will Turn 40k into a star wars universe soon enough.

>>50754615
How about you stop sucking dick and read what's in the recent proper lore. Both crusades were ordered by the High Lords and each one was said to be massive in size. The second one being much larger than the first.

And no, The Imperials were losing the first one before they withdrew and the second one they outright lost and nuked Damocles Gulf.

Fucking Imperialfags cannot into fluff.

>>50754704
>>50754773
As a guy who is very familiar with the Tau fluff, you pulled most of that out of your butt.

>>50754949
That'd be copyright anon so that would be very stupid

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>>50749036
YES. Holy fuck, the Tau would be barely a footnote if they didn't have a Codex.

I love the blue bastards, but goddamn they're minor fucking players at best.

If the Imperium was 1950s America, the Tau would be... Fiji. For reference, Chaos would be the USSR, Eldar would be Britain, and the Necrons would be the PRC.

>>50754922
Not enough. In the Age of Ending (999 41K), hundreds of Xenos races are launching full scale campaigns on awakened and distracted Imperium. The outstretched Deathwatch cannot handle all of this xenos and help from proper Space Marine factions isn't coming sense they are busy with Abaddon's Black Crusade or protecting their own domains.

>>50754987
>The outstretched Deathwatch cannot handle all of this xenos
Yet in every instance we see them they are successfully handling the Xenos and never fail

>>50754998
successfully completing every mission is not the same as handling it
even the deathwatch cant be in 2 places at once

>>50754982
>the Tau would be barely a footnote if they didn't have a Codex.

Not really. This is as stupid as saying that Ultramar or the Sautekh are footnotes.

The Tau is a superpower now and whatever they do and what happens to them has galactic consequences. For example, The Tau helping Ultramar against the Necron threat can be the changing point between certain defeat and victory against the Necron threat.

>>50754951
>if they nuke you, you win.

>>50754998
Nope, their codex has plenty of failures.

And in the Deathwatch novel, the Deathwatch had to abaddon a system to fall to a Necron invasion because they were called to handle the octarious crisis before the Orksa nd Tyranids both spill to the heart of the Imperium.

>>50755014
>Crusade was meant to kick the Tau back across the gulf and reclaim the worlds they conquered
>Also crush the Tau once and for all

>The crusade was militarily defeated on the first world and was forced to retreat after nuking the world
>The Tau are minus one world but still have all the worlds they conquered. They still have a presence across the gulf
>Crusade failed in its objectives

>>50755038
>if they exterminate your cities, you win
>if they use orbital bombardments, you win

>>50755048
Sorry, they lost. The nuking was in case the crusade was met with defeat and it did.

The Tau hold supremacy over the region despite the firewall.

>>50755006
Okay then name an example of them not handling something. What important planet or system has the Imperium lost to Xenos which the Deathwatch could have stopped but failed too?

Also an organization with a near 100% success ratio, what a bunch of fucking gary stus

>>50755058
>if your empire splits and fractures into enclaves, you win

>>50755058
Putting in terms retarded Imperialfags can understand....

The crusade was meant to take all the Tau cities and wipe them out completely. The crusade was defeated at the first city, burned it down and left with over 50% causalities.

Imagine if the medieval Crusades had ended with this result.

>>50755078
>Imagine if the medieval Crusades had ended with this result.
Sometimes, they didn't even get that far.

>>50755069
Okay but this is just being dumb now. The Empire didn't split of fracture. A small collection of worlds seceded.

To be frank the Imperium probably has more solar systems seceding from it on a regular basis than planets comprise the Farsight Enclaves. Besides this tactic your using is blatantly trolltastic and works for any faction, here's a quick example;

>Even when your greatest general betrays you and half your military forces betray you, you win

See? Its sort of simple and pointless.

>>50755069
But the empire didn't split. Tghe Tau are in contact with the TSE and ships that can travel through the firewall are being developed. You really not having any arguments. Give one or this is your last (you).

>>50755062
You

see

>>50755024

Also in Infinite Cycle, a Deathwatch team was wiped out by a sect of Electro-priests who were worshiping a C'tan Shard.

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>>50753516
>>5. A full scale WAAAGH!
>The Tau defeated several large Waaaagh!. Like War of Dakka Waaaagh! and the Waaagh! of the War of Great Confederation.
>You know nothing about the lore. Get out.

>implying

>>50755092
>>50755093
Oh okay you want argument? here is an Argument, Tau are protected by Plot armor and don't sell worth a dick outside of GW models.

>>50753602
Which is obviously horseshit because Tau lack the logistics to do fucking anything. The Imperium has a population in the quintillions and a military might in the trillions, with billions recruited daily. The Imperium could throw so many people at the Tau they could form a black hole from their bodily mass. Meanwhile the Tau lack FTL and can't contend with a single galactic player.

Whoever wrote that shit is obviously wanking Tau to sell models and hasn't a single fucking clue about the Tau faction considering all of that information is impossible.

>>50755111
Fucking retarded bastard. The War of Dakka reached its end in the Farsight supplement where Farsight got his revenge by defeating the Warboss and then hunting him down to Arthas Molech where he dueled him and killed him.

The warbosses ashes are in a glass ball in Farsight's office.

>>50755110
That's one example. One Necron invasion. Is that the only failure the Deathwatch have ever had against Xenos?

>>50755127
>Tau fanbois
>Not Retarded
Pick both

>>50754951
>massive crusade
>only millions of troops deployed

Nigga you haven't a fucking clue what a proper Imperial crusade looks like, and need to stop guzzling Tau cock. The Sabbat Worlds involved billions upon billions of troops and was something straight out of the Horus Heresy. Even Mont'ka was fucking tiny and only involved a handful of chapters. Nevermind that the Imperium was retarded and for some reason didn't orbitally bombard the Tau. The Tau wouldn't exist as a faction if the Imperium just bombarded them ever time they fought, thereby erasing all Tau forces on the planet.

>>50755111
In the Farsight Supplement Farsight kills Grog and his Waaagh

>>50755119
Actually, the Tau developed FTL that is 1/3 slower than the Imperium. Had the Tau expansion continued, they would have tripled their holdings. Grapping a huge chunk of space from the Imperium.

And Imperium in its current state lacks the capacity to wipe out the Tau. According to the lore that should an effiort would require tremendous resources from the Imperium that it cannot afford to spent and even then it might to enough.

>>50755116
Sure, the a lesser form of the same Plot Armour worn by the Imperium, Primarchs, Ultramarines, Grey Knights, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Blood Angels and the like. What's your point? The setting runs on Plot Armour.

>>50755119

It's funny how Imperialfags keep increasing their BS population as it will ever matter.

>>50755149
Only because GW has no sense of scale. The Imperium has more than enough bodies and logistical firepower to wipe the Tau off the fucking map, not to mention all the super weapons the Admech has that could do them in. Or undetectable black ships dropping exterminatus warheads without warning.

>>50755140
>didn't orbitally bombard the Tau

But they did. It just happens that the Tau has anti-orbital weapons, stealth and shields generators protecting/hiding strategic targets.

>>50755140
Sorry but GW itself officially called the Crusade dispatched against the Tau a Crusade (and a large one at that). Since they're the voice of canon and you're just a dude ranting on the internet I'm afraid I'll have to go with their word on it.

Additionally you do realize that its already been introduced that the Tau have Orbital Bombardment proof Shield Generators? That's why the Imperium couldn't just do that in Agrellan.

And Mont'ka features what GW itself canonically called the largest clash of Armour in the Imperium's history since Tallarn so...clearly there's nothing small about it.

Sorry dude but your gonna have to try to get some facts next time.

>>50755151
>It's funny how Imperialfags keep increasing their BS population as it will ever matter.
>calculations and official statements from the lore is increasing
It ain't me that's doing that shit, take it up with GW. The Imperium has enough bodies to drown even the Orks. Fuck, in a recent Admech codex, the Admech managed to out attrition warfare the Tyranids.

>>50755162
GW having no sense of scale runs both ways. If they were to take full cognizance of their doings for the Imperium they'd have to do the same for Tau, including technology to trigger supernovas and nanobots which extend O'Vesa's life indefinitely.

Honestly this whole 'but GW doesn't do what I want them to' attitude seems petulant. GW have said the Tau are major contenders who can fight the forces so far thrown at them. That's the canon, why whine about it so much?

>>50755162

Does the Imperium have enough ships and logistic tail to send all these men without starving them to death? I'm sure the Chinese could conquer the US...if they ever had a proper navy.

>>50755164
>But they did. It just happens that the Tau has anti-orbital weapons, stealth and shields generators protecting/hiding strategic targets.
None of that will stop a full bombardment. I don't mean "lightly glass the surface" I mean "mass scatter the planet" like what happened to Nostramo. A small amount of Imperial cruisers can blow up planets by just blasting them with lances for a couple hours.

>>50755137
Not an argument.

>>50755140
You are lying and going against the lore.

The first Damocles Crusade featured hundreds of regiments. They were more than a million.

The second one featured 1000+ regiments and the numbers given to the IG incolved in the planet invasion was "Billions" That's ignoring that the Imperium was invading other planets in the Dovar system so it was indeed hundreds of billions across the system. Also there were elements of 12 chapters in that warzone and one a single planet in the intial stages of the war, hundreds of marines were killed and many more still were maimed in the fighting.

And depending if you take FFG as canon, then in a single system conflict, the Tau killed HUNDREDS of billions of IG (source is Deathwatch Jericho Reach).

Stick to the fluff or not be taken seriously.

>>50755174
The Imperium has whole regions of space solely dedicated to the creation of foodstuff. Not to mention that the crew is recycled into protein waste and consumed post mortem. Nothing goes to waste, not even the waste.

>>50755150
The Imperium is given a mallus to plot armor otherwise they would exterminate everything. Christ sake they have to nerf the emperor so that he is a cripple in stasis sitting on a chair but no such things for the Tau they get everything super double happy. It's retarded the Tau don't sell outside of models and now GW now have to walk a fine line between screwing other the most valuable part of the franchise to please a few blueberry fans or screw over the blue berries and lose a smaller profitable part of their enterprise. The Tau don't belong in the WH40K Universe they really don't add anything.

>>50755184
Not an argument

>>50755190

>No waste.

The Imperium is far from efficient.

>>50755183
Yes, it can. The Mont'ka book says that the Imperium learned from previous fights how dangerous Tau planetary defenses are. They cannot just stroll to a Tau world. They got to defeat its defenses first and it's a tricky and bloody affair.

>>50755183
Can they? That seems to VASTLY minimize the import of Blackstone Fortresses and the Planet Killer if any Navy Patrol can do so.

Besides in Mont'ka it was simply stated that the Shield Generators made an Orbital Bombardment ineffective. For all we know the Shield Generators simply managed to somehow prevent the destruction of the physical planet as well, who knows, but GW has canonically stated that the Tau possess Shield Generators which block Imperial Armada Bombardments. That's canon.

>>50755183

The Imperium from the time of Horus is no more. Also, I'm sure that the modern Tau ships can do the same. Spaceships in 40k are ridiculously powerful.

>>50755184
>The first Damocles Crusade featured hundreds of regiments. They were more than a million.
Regiments are thousands, not millions. That's a single million at most, which isn't much at all by the big campaign standards.

>Also there were elements of 12 chapters in that warzone and one a single planet in the intial stages of the war, hundreds of marines were killed and many more still were maimed in the fighting.
Twelve is a pathetically small amount of chapters, and clearly billions weren't deployed because entire continents were not covered in endless walls of humans, and the Tau don't have the logistics to deal with so many men.

It's just another case of GW being fuckwits and trying to get out of the corner they put themselves in, because an empire as small as the tau shouldn't stand a chance against an empire that rules over far more than a mere million worlds.

>>50755171
>he Admech managed to out attrition warfare the Tyranids.

That's because the Admech kept recycling their troops.

and no.

The Orks outnumber humanity and the Necrons are equal to humanity's numbers.

>>50755190
>Nothing goes to waste in the Imperium.
This is dumb, a consistent aspect reiterated about the Imperium is a tendency towards wastefulness.

An easy example would be the Admech story where they trigger a Waaagh to gather data, gather enormous amounts of data, but then it all gets destroyed to instead lay the foundations for a grenade factory.

Stating the Imperium 'never wastes' is simply dumb

>>50755215
>Regiments are thousands, not millions. That's a single million at most, which isn't much at all by the big campaign standards.

Again, you lie. The sources say multiple millions.

>Twelve is a pathetically small amount of chapters, and clearly billions weren't deployed because entire continents were not covered in endless walls of humans, and the Tau don't have the logistics to deal with so many men.

12 and they lost companies worth of marines at the start of the conflict their losses stockpiled when the Tau targeted them in middle and end of the war. So there must have been a fuckton of marines on that planet.

Also the text says BILLIONS of IG landed on the world. Do you work for GE? No? Then you don't get to tell me that there weren't billions of IG fighting on that planet.

>>50755192
>Don't sell outside of models
What...what exactly do you want them to sell in?

What do you mean the Imperium is given Plot Armour 'else they would exterminate everything?' That isn't how plot armour works, I hope you realize, or when you accuse the Tau now have Plot Armour are you saying that they're being nerfed?

Also...the Emperor had to be nerfed is an odd way to describe a corner stone of the setting for ages. I'm really confused but your point seems to boil down to; Imperium fans more important than Tau fans hence the fact that the Tau actually have defeated the Imperium is unacceptable.

And if that is your point then, honestly, I'm glad the Tau are winning. I'm sick and tired of every single book just being about the Imperium winning and would like it if eventually other factions (ALL factions) could have a large amount of cool victories and awesome moments to their story.

>>50755215
This is dumb. The Imperium literally began from a single world. That's smaller than the Tau are now.

>>50755210
>Can they? That seems to VASTLY minimize the import of Blackstone Fortresses and the Planet Killer if any Navy Patrol can do so.
Literally happens all the time in the books. A couple space marine ships are capable of mass scattering a space hulk the size of a moon, which is a solid rock of adamantium, plasteel, and frozen rock. Just one Imperial torpedo has enough gigatons in it to bulldoze an entire continent in one shot. The lances are even more potent with sustained firepower. Cyclonic torpedoes and shit are used because they don't take a day and a half to get the job done.

>Besides in Mont'ka it was simply stated that the Shield Generators made an Orbital Bombardment ineffective. For all we know the Shield Generators simply managed to somehow prevent the destruction of the physical planet as well, who knows, but GW has canonically stated that the Tau possess Shield Generators which block Imperial Armada Bombardments. That's canon.
Which is impossible because literally nobody has the ability to survive an exterminatus effort, in which yottatons of energy will be released. Nobody in 40k besides maybe the Necrons even HAS the power generation able to survive such firepower. They must just mean tactical bombardment instead of full annihilation, because by the destruction of Nostramo by the Night Lords, a group of battleships/cruisers can mass scatter a planet with a fucking adamantium crust by just plugging it with lances until it goes boom. Additionally, the destruction of Nostramo mass scattered the planet so hard that chunks of Nostramo have been found at LEAST 200 lightyears from its original location. So pieces of nostramo, after it blew up, were accelerated to relativistic velocities and scattered over multiple sectors over the course of ten thousand years.

Ground combat shouldn't even fucking exist with that level of firepower.

>>50755237
>What...what exactly do you want them to sell in?

It's a wrestling term. It means 'To act like a hit actually hurt'. He's complaining that the Tau basically get no significant losses

>>50755258
Well I'm sorry your butthurt but GW has spoken and has said that the Tau Shield Generators can block that.

Feel free to write your fanfiction but I'll be over here with the canon.

>>50755242
>This is dumb. The Imperium literally began from a single world. That's smaller than the Tau are now.
This is more an example of the Emperor than anything else, considering he conquered a million worlds by some sources, billions by others, over the course of just around 200 years starting with nothing but the populations of Terra and Mars.

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A Riptide's Nova Generator can suffer a catastrophic meltdown powerful enough to melt an Ice Moon.

>>50755271

Technically it says they block bombardments, not exterminatus. That's not really the same thing.

One is a weapon of war, the other is 'This planet stops existing'. Describing it as bombardments isn't really accurate.

>>50755271
>Well I'm sorry your butthurt but GW has spoken and has said that the Tau Shield Generators can block that.
No, they said it could withstand bombardment, which is not the same thing as mass scattering. Orbital bombardment is what chapter masters call down on tabletop, mass scattering is when a planet is turned into an asteroid belt blasted across a radius of several hundred lightyears.

>>50755268
Yes and that when GW wants to sell the franchise outside of models they use the Imperium not the Tau yet the Tau are lavished with all kinds of absurd fluff.

>>50755268
Except their Supreme Leader and the first Character with a Miniature to die in ages?

Or their defeat at Kvariam Alpha, Voltoris, Stygian, Neotech and then of course the grinding to a halt of the entire Third Sphere Expansion. Not to menton the original loss of all the Second Sphere Expansion gains.

The Tau lose as much as the Imperium but, like the Imperium, it never actually effects substantive change.

Except the loss of Aun'va, I'm honestly surprised by that. Was hoping the SW's would lose someone with a mini in WoM cause of it but alas SW Plot Armour is simply too strong

>>50755274
Doesn't change the fact. Its already established Empires can begin small (duh) so complaining the Tau are small so they can't do anything and must die is tantamount to saying no-one but the established existing nations at current will ever matter ever.

>>50755258

It's a fool's errand to compare anything that the Imperium had during the Horus Heresy and what's left in the year 40k. The Imperium has lost most of its toys by after 10,000 years of decay and wars.

>>50755274
>nothing but the populations of Terra and Mars.
Please ignore the forced recruiting from the conquered worlds.

>>50755313
Er, they won't, like they never have in all of history. The most powerful nations are the most powerful nations because they are situated in the most resource rich trading regions. Unless fucking uganda suddenly relocates to north america, it's always going to be a shitehole.

>>50755288
No it blocks the Mechanicus' super-secret Exterminatus too. It can block both. Sorry.

>>50755289
No it simply says the Shields can block the Ship's bombardments and a Exterminatus. I don't remember 'Mass Scattering' being a precise technical term used by the Imperium so you're drawing a distinction which in universe simply doesn't exist.

Seriously GW said the Tau fields prevent destruction by Fleet Assets. Its done, get over it already, if GW wanted the Tau to be able to be destroyed by something as simple as an Orbital Bombardment they would have let them, but they don't and thus they'll create a reason why they can't.

>>50755321
>starting with nothing but the populations of Terra and Mars.
Why are you so dishonest anon?

>>50755332
>No it blocks the Mechanicus' super-secret Exterminatus too. It can block both. Sorry.

Citation required? Seriously, I'd like the quote for that one.

>>50755295
Dude now you're just being stupid. The Tau are no more lavished with absurd fluff than the Imperium. And Considering the Imperium makes up 90% of all fluff the Imperium, by simply numbers, will have more absured fluff than anyone.

>>50755300
>>50755343
Come off it the Tau are in no way crippled like the Imperium unless they suddenly forget how to make Riptides.

>>50755321
Of course ignore them. The Imperium didn't begin with them. It began with just Terra.

You guys take the fluff way too seriously. It's 40k, for god's sake! It is NOT Shakespeare.

>>50755330
Yes because America, Russia, China have always been the three most powerful countries in the world, haven't they?

Honestly are you arguing now that the same set of nations are the only powerful polities in history? That's absolutely ridiculous.

>>50755136
I need one to disprove you. If you want more start reading their codex timeline.

>>50755342
The part where it states all the Tau beneath the last Shield Generator were safe from the ensuing Fireball? Did you not read the ending?

>>50755332
>Seriously GW said the Tau fields prevent destruction by Fleet Assets. Its done, get over it already, if GW wanted the Tau to be able to be destroyed by something as simple as an Orbital Bombardment they would have let them, but they don't and thus they'll create a reason why they can't.
Why are you so dishonest anon and misrepresenting shit? They only said it stops bombardment, not exterminatus.

Also, fun thing, I calc'd how fast those chunks of nostramo got flung about. They would have to be traveling at 13,421,519 miles per hour in order to travel 200ly in 10,000 years, and that's the generous low assumption. It could have been as far as 300 or even 500ly.

>>50755371

No, I mean 'Bring the quote up'. I'm not who you are arguing with. I haven't read the book but I'm surprised it would say that about an Exterminatus by name.

>>50755351
How is the Imperium crippled? It is literally the galaxy's largest and most powerful hegemon, the rulebook states its larger than its ever been, it recently added over 200 systems through one Crusade alone and its Space Marines Chapters of Import have never lost a significant clash ever. How is it crippled?

Even comparing the Tau to the Imperium is dumb. Whereas the Imperium has beaten Horus, Ghazghkull (twice), The Beast, Two Tyrannic Wars and the greatest living Seer in history the Tau's only impressive accomplishment is defeating an Imperium Crusade. That's all. You're getting worked up over literally nothing.

>>50755389

Well that and the War of Dakka and stopping a hive fleet with a LOT less losses than the Imperium took doing the same.

>>50755368
No you don't need one, I said 90% not 100%.

Deathwatch still win 90% of all their engagements. There's only one example of them ever failing, what a bunch of self-inserts who never lose anything and even beat the Eldar's greatest Seer casually.

>>50755389
Nope, you should read the timeline section. The Waning being an example.

The Imperium is collapsing and text says that these are the final days of the Imperium.

>>50755385
Say what? I don't have the book on me so I can just give you my recollection but just go check it on Lexicanum or 40k wiki they'll have the source and maybe a quote.

>>50755411

Wait...so you don't have an actual quote saying it was an exterminatus? Because there is a serious amount of distance between orbital bombardment and exterminatus.

>>50755401
They cannot win them all and cannot be everywhere. Also the Deathwatch are a single teams. They cannot compete with hundreds of Xenos warmachines by themselves..

>>50755383
Dude your calculations are nice and all but, as had been said, GW had said what canon is. Deal with it already.

>>50755364
No you retard, I'm saying that Europe, Asia, and America are the only continents that matter, because they're the most resource rich and best for trade. Or to be specific, EU, RF, PRC, and now the oddball that is America. America actually would have been the single greatest super power in all history had the natives had horses and proper metallurgy, because North America is Earth's eden. It is the single best spot to host a civilization in terms of available resources, natural ports, and natural defensive geography. The second best being Europe, with eastern asia being the third best.

Africa, India, and the Middle East will forever remain irrelevant shitstains that get run the fuck over by anybody with decent logistics. Notice as well that for most of history, all three have typically been shitholes.

>>50755389
Someone is getting worked up that their invincible blueberries are being called out on their bullshit unless you are going to argue that everyone in this thread stating that the imperium is a crumbling decaying edifice is wrong.

>>50755419

Seriously, can someone find this actual paragraph everyone is arguing about?

>>50755419
Except it's nothing like you stated, because they said bombardment and not exterminatus. Tau have no demonstrated feats for surviving exterminatus.

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>>50755389

Do you realise that most of the fluff, from all sides, is written as propaganda? If anything, a common theme is that the Imperium in on the verge of collapse.

>>50755399
Hive Fleet Gorgon was tiny compared to the Tyrannic Wars and the Tau defeated it with Imperium Aide.

As for the Waaagh; Cato Sicarius and a Company of Scouts with knives defeated a Waaagh, the Imperium's crushed countless Waaaghs with ease. Whereas the War of Dakka is literally one of the toughest campaigns of Farsight's entire life and the moment at which he finally reached his greatest potential.

Besides the War of Dakka, again, is tiny compared to Snagrod, Ghazghkull, Ullanor or the Beast. Really still not comparable.

>>50755407
>>50755389
Also the fact that the Imperium can no longer focus on the xenos threats while its pouring its resources to stop Abaddon.

The Imperium already lost a whole Segmentum. Obscurus went dark and the Imperium lost all contact with it.

>>50755407
Name a major war the Imperium loses then. If its waning it should be easy to do so. I'll wait.

>>50755433
Additionally, there is no such thing as an impenetrable shield. That shield is supported by a generator, which needs to supply energy to support the field, which in turn is weakened by being hit by more energy. Eventually, either with weeks or months of sustained fire, it would buckle.

Or because Tau don't have void shields, just teleport a cyclonic torpedo under it and blow it up.

>>50755417
Orbital Bombarment? I'm talking about the Mechanicus' super weapon deployed at the end

>>50755437
>Hive Fleet Gorgon was tiny compared to the Tyrannic Wars and the Tau defeated it with Imperium Aide.

Actually, the Ultramarines were helped by Necrons, Eldar, Tau, Orks in thinning down Behemoth.

They didn't do it alone.

And War of Dakka is counted among the notable and large Waaagh! in the 5th ED marine dex.

>>50755418
Then name some losses. I can name you five Xenos losses to Deathwatch if you want. If I do that will you name me five Deathwatch losses to Xenos?

>>50755443

What's stopping the Tau from powering their shields with bigger energy generators than the ships? If anything, planets should have the advantage when it comes to producing energy.

>>50755442
I don't have no name anything. Read the text about the stages of the Imperium as the timeline progresses. They say that the Imperium is shrinking and growing weak.

>>50755442

Even the best of the Imperium's victories are Pyrrhic victories.

>>50755422
The Middle-East has been important and influential in history often anon.

But how does this have any bearing on the discussion?

>>50755455
Naming thing or not naming things doesn't change the state of the Deathwatch in the End Times. What kind of stupid logic is that?

>>50755467
The logic that you need to actually provide evidence for a thing to be so?

Stating an Empire is crumbling when its borders are always expanding, its enemies always losing and all major wars always victories is ridiculous.

If the Imperium is crumbling/losing/waning name some major Wars it has lost and vast swathes of Space it has lost.

>>50755422

Ethiopia was actually a decently size and modern empire for a time and the middle east has quite often been very important. I mean, look at the Ottomon Empire or Carthage.

>>50755466
>The Middle-East has been important and influential in history often anon.
And never anything more than a regional power.

>>50755448
Strange the Nids Codex states the Ultramarines beat Behemoth all on their own, makes no mention of any of the rest of it.

Besides how does any of this change that the Imperium won both Tyrannic Wars?

The War of Dakka can be as big as you want it still isn't comparable to Ghazghkull, The Beast, Ullanor or Snagrod all of whom the Imperium has defeated.

Oh shit, did this thread become Tau wank while I slept?

>>50755486

So Rome isn't relevant as it was also a regional power? After all, it never took over China or America.

>>50755465
If you can endure Pyrrhic Victories for 8000+ years and expand your borders and armies constantly while you do so they aren't pyrrhic

>>50754216
How can he be right when he's wrong?

>>50755499
That is apparently what the anon is saying. By his estimation it seems the only polities that will ever matter are ones far enough in the future that technology lets them project themselves globally.

No doubt if we ever expand to multiple planets he will then insist the USA, Russia and China were historically weak simply because they didn't control multiple planets

>>50755494
Well no, can't you read? It's mostly a thread of people going 'Rah, rah kill Tau, rah, rah Tau irrelevant'

It almost makes one wonder why GW makes a faction and writes about them for people and players to invest if apparently they're so pointless and about to die.

>>50755516
The best thing GW could do is write about every Tau planet getting virus bombed.

>>50755010
How can they be a superpower when they have a lower population than the Eldar?

>>50755516
>It almost makes one wonder why GW makes a faction and writes about them for people and players to invest if apparently they're so pointless and about to die.

I believe we call that 'Sisters of Battle'.

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>>50750805
But it can be done correctly - just look at Star Trek and its space - pretty much everything happens in a single sector, albeit a big one.

>>50755532

How many games did you lost to a Tau player?

>>50755532
I sometimes imagine how nice it would be if people just were okay with different people liking different factions and, this being a game, recognizing that every faction deserves to be in its own way fun and worth investing in and having a shot at winning.

But then I remember this is 40k and so the only thing the majority of fans online want is the death of all factions other than the Imperium.

>>50755538
True ;_;

>>50755548
>But then I remember this is 40k and so the only thing the majority of fans online want is the death of all factions other than the Imperium.
Of course, that's the point of 40K everything else is an irrelevancy otherwise GW nerfs their own income stream.

>>50755516
I am reading, and it sounds like a lot of Tau Mary sue-dom, Tau wank, and the occasional good argument for the Tau. I'm skipping the posts that say "Tau are small and could not currently do anything to anyone" because I already know that. I'm OP, btw. I'm laughing at wank and only taking the posts with cited sources seriously.

>>50755538
Ow, right in my soul, anon.

>>50755538
I just had a thought. I'm betting the sisters in their totality have a higher population than the Tau.

>>50755564
If you're just reading to confirm what you already believe and without any interest in anything but confirmation why bother? If an echo chamber for your views is what you were looking for why waste a thread on it? You've literally just said what your view is and called anything that differs from it wank.

>>50754967
>>50754908
That's the thing, it WAS great, I liked it, but this is all the stuff they pulled out in Mont'ka.

I sweat it's an actual thing.

>>50755579

Nope. According to the last core rulebook to give numbers they have 10k and yet also have a convent on nearly every planet.

Presumably each planet gets a single finger or something. GW is not good at numbers.

>>50755491
Funny that you didn't read other codex before talking. If you want to ask for a source then just ask. Point is that the other races weakened behemoth before it reached Ultramar

>>50754704
> Massive fleet assemble. Titan legions, thousands of ships, billions of guardsmen all just in first wave, Tau outnumbered 100 to 1
OH SHIT WARPSTORMS! Crusade splintered so like a tenth gets though, no reinforcements or heavy hitters Tau holds it's own against severely weakened Crusade fleet cut down to a tenth of it's size.

Yeah, no. There was no warpstorm. This is what was sent on the Damocles Gulf crusade.


>Inquisitorial investigation of the dissident worlds by the Ordo Hereticus revealed evidence of Tau activity in adjoining sectors. The conclusion was that they represented a major threat and Cardinal Esau Gurney of the world of Brimlock called for an Imperial Crusade to be dispatched to purge the aliens. The Crusade was based around a dozen capital starships of the Imperial Navy, 5 provisional companies of Space Marines made up of contingents supplied by almost a dozen different Chapters and 19 Regiments of Imperial Guard, seven of them from Brimlock.

For someone so mad about the Tau only winning due to plot armor and luck, you seem to have imagined most of it yourself.

>>50755615
What's the 'other codex'?

Also, again, how does any of this change that the Imperium won both Tyrannic Wars?

>>50755479
I already provided evidence the main rulebook timeline. You have no evidence for your position.

>>50755626
No that statement 'crumbling' isn't evidence.

Give examples of what has been lost, worlds, Systems, important military forces.

If its so clear why are you so hesitant to just give an example of a major military defeat by one of the Imperium's major military forces?

>>50755583
Did I fucking say that? Fucking no, I didn't. I said I'm IGNORING posts I already know and only taking ones with cited sources seriously. The 40k fandom on /tg/ has a reputation for embellishing or flat out lying about lore. So if you make a claim with no sauce, I just move on. But claims like "the Tau are really fucking small and in their current state and couldn't take out any major faction" is common knowledge about Tau. They simply don't have the manpower or influence yet. That's part of their whole fluff. I didn't make an echo chamber for my views, and you'd know that if you weren't so goddamn convinced that everyone here is out to be a contrarian troll and if you developed some reading comprehension. Good day, anon.

>>50753802
Let's not forget that they castrate their human subjects.
They're just as evil and murderous like the rest, they just hide it better because they have better propaganda and full and direct control over their quite small popul;ace.

>>50755650
>One instance of castration and human testing
>As evil as the Empire which wipes out all other life in the galaxy which is not of a specific genotype and religion it approves
Y-yeah anon, totally the same.

>>50755645
>>50755621
They mad.
Tau literallly snow flake the faction. Can't wait for GW to give then warp travel with none of the side effects. Oh wait.

>>50755645
Not that anon but there's like no 'cited' sources here at all. /tg/ doesn't exactly come with sourcing and footnotes so what are you even reading then?

Also considering you literally open up by saying 'the Tau can't do anything' and refuse to accept that this isn't fact I don't see the point of this thread either?

You've already apparently got your opinion, refuse to accept any argument against it, and so the questioning seems pointless.

>>50755677
To be fair Space Wolves, Ultramarines, Primarchs and the Emperor are far bigger snowflakes than the Tau have ever been.

>>50755623
Because they didn't do it on their own. The Tyranids, tau, The FW Eldar book,' and Necron BL content.

So you don't get to say the Tau for help

>>50755706
What?

This is just bizarre, because other people took part in a War the faction who won the War...didn't? Huh?

>>50755644
Nope it is. You don't get to tell us what not in the fluff

>>50755706
Anon trying to compare the Imperium's victories over Hive Fleet Behemoth and Kraken to the Tau's victory over Gorgon is foolish.

Behemoth and Kraken dwarfed Gorgon by several orders of magnitude, the Tau wouldn't never have lasted against a threat like Kraken or Behemoth, only the Imperium can manage that.

The Imperium's victories are far more impressive than anything the Tau have ever managed.

>>50755699
True but all expect the furfags have become irrelevant and hopefully Magnus makes them yiff in hell.

>>50755721
Just replying to you mentioning that the Tau got help. Why else did you mention it?

>>50755727
>You don't get to tell us what not in the fluff
Same to you?

Still waiting, where are these numerous major defeats by major Imperium military forces. I mean if its waning they must be happening right?

Where are the Deathwatch seriously losing? I mean there should be examples right? If its true why can't you give me any examples?

>>50755740
The Wolves won Fenris. Again. They aren't irrelevant at all, just found out their Gods are real and shit too.

Wolves literally kicked Magnus Ass again and now on the way to kick Abaddon's ass. Wolves ain't irrelevant at all (and no way GW will ever let Wolves be irrelevant)

>>50755621
>19 regiments of Imperial Guard
>19 regiments
>regiments
>regiment = 1000-2000 soldiers

Kek

>>50755742
Sure, I can understand that then.

Doesn't change the scale in difference between the Imperium and Tau's achievements and that getting worked up over the Tau beating an Imperium crusade to the point of crying for their extermination is ridiculous.

>>50755739
Not the point. The point is thatcanon tried to discredit the Tau victory by saying they got help. So I am doing the same for the imperium.

>>50755771
To be fair we know Titan Legions like the Legio Thanatris were there too. On Dal'yth one entire Spearhead of the three was composed purely of Titans

>>50755677
>warp travel
How is that possible when they have virtually no psykers?

>>50755740
How are the Ultramarines irrelevant?

>>50755750
Nope I told you what's in the fluff and pointed where it is. You on the other hand did not.

>>50755479

The Imperium regularly loses worlds to orks, loses a BUNCH of worlds to the Tyranids every time they show up, lose at least one planet every time a Necron Tomb World awakes, and whenever an unsanctioned psyker explodes and chaos gets a free planet...

Like, shit. Every time any of the other factions does anything, the Imperium loses territory. They already lost Segmentum Obscuras. That's a whole chunk of the galaxy.

The theme of the Imperium is that they are holding on, but just barely. The reason threads like the Tau continue to not just exist but thrive is because the Imperium literally doesn't have enough fingers for every hole in the dam, and more keep appearing.

They are teetering on the edge, and unless something major happens they are swiftly approaching the point where the numbers of battles they win is irrelevant compared to the number of fights they were unable to even show up to.

>>50755796
SCIENCE!

They've got limited Warp jump abilities, called a "Skip Drive" or some shit. Its like skipping a rock on a lake as opposed to real Warp travel is like grabbing a scuba set with a tank full of evil crazy gas and getting where you need to go.

>>50755796
Because reasons okay don't question the Tau or you get autistic screeching.
>>50755799
Sorry my mind blots out the Ultramarines, must be the colour.

>>50755796

They have a very shitty version of warp drive that never really enters the Immaterium, just gets halfway to the warp and them comes back.

The Tau actually can build ships that fully enter the warp, but they never come back and the Tau don't know why yet/how to fix that problem. Presumably they are working on it, but they don't understand how the warp works so unless a Guevesa techpriest gives the Geller Field technology its unlikely they are going to get anywhere anytime soon.

Though, Tau with Geller Field tech would be hilarious. I imagine them making some kind of Gellar grenade that kills demons.

>>50755841
>They have a very shitty version of warp drive that never really enters the Immaterium, just gets halfway to the warp and them comes back
Then it's not really warp drive if it never enters the warp. It's a sub-warp drive.

It's a good thing for the Tau that Chaos really doesn't care about them.

>>50755841
>Gellar grenade
Fund it.

>>50755805
Name these important worlds lost to Orks. I mean as far as I can tell the greatest Waaagh of the 41st Millenium has never successfully conquered a single planet from the Imperium and been repulsed both times it attempted to do so.

The loss of each Hive Fleet is a complete loss of all biomass gained by said Hive Fleet, making their destruction in the Tyrannic Wars complete defeats for the Nids.

Similarly we know the Imperium is expanding, with recent Crusades said to have added up to 200 worlds to the Imperium, and with the Rulebook itself stating that the Imperium is larger in the 41st Millenium that it has ever been.

That does not seem like fading.

Whereas as characters like Ghazhkull, Eldrad and the Swarmlord consistently lose to Marines, has Azrael, Logan, Calgar or Dante ever actually lost a war?

>>50755841

That said, daemons have difficulties in seeing the Tau. If the human soul is a huge flame, the Tau soul is like a will-o'-the-wisp. It's likely that the reason why they don't come back is because they get lost in the Warp without a psychic beacon guiding their steps.

>>50749154
> Tau are basically Alien Space Prussia

I'm actually okay with this.

>>50749839
>Implying human porn/fetish drawings isn't ubiquitous

>>50755893
>because they get lost in the Warp without a psychic beacon guiding their steps.

I like to imagine that the Tau ships do come back, but the problem is that the range is so, soooo much longer than any of the Tau would have guessed.

So they show up someplace random, a hundred light years from the furthest reaches of Tau space, and have no idea where they are and no support or way to call back home.

And then they try to hail a passing Void Leviathan to ask for directions (and would you like to join the Greater Good?) and get eaten.

Bonus round: its the same Void Leviathan every time.

>>50753488
It took humanity a roughly 12000 years from the first building built to this day. It took tau 8000 years to get out of the caves to have 300+ worlds star empire. And the way technological advantages speeds up as it goes, humanity is blown out of the water by tau quite quickly if they can keep going.

>>50753615
More like a "reductio ad lutherum", i.e. "Lex Luthor has stolen 400 billion pies! That's as much as four 100 billions, and that's horrible!".

But seriously, do you have a point? Are you contesting the idea that the human brain didn't evolve to deal with phenomena whose discrete units number in the hundreds of billions?

>>50756089
Which is retarded in my opinion they may as well make the 40K universe about the Tau

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>>50756111

It's just the reversal of the classic cliche of "humanity advancing incredibly fast while the aliens are stagnant or took eons to reach the same place".

>>50756133
Sure but the cliche about Humanity sells, the ones with Humanity getting fucked up and picking thee colours doesn't

>>50755882
>Similarly we know the Imperium is expanding, with recent Crusades said to have added up to 200 worlds to the Imperium, and with the Rulebook itself stating that the Imperium is larger in the 41st Millenium that it has ever been.

Nope, the Imperium is decreasing. The period of expansion happen early in the timeline but as the timeline progressed, the Imperium shrunk and it started collapsing.

>>50756111

I think there's an argument that the different factions of 40k represent different fates and stages of the history of mankind. Tau being a recall of the early days of the Dark Age of Technology.

>>50753516
A:

I said "could" not "would". My point is that any of the phenomena listed is an existential threat to the Tau in a way it wouldn't be to a major faction.

B:

> the Tau defeated two massive Imperial crusades.

No, the Tau held them off (barely and at great cost) for long enough that more serious concerns forced the Imperium to redirect its forces to other fronts.

>The Tau defeated Hive Fleet Gorgon.

Gorgon started as a splinter of Behemoth and was small compared to other Hive fleets. IT was not "full scale".

>The Tau defeated several large Waaaagh!.

And you'll note that in the War of Dakka they lost three "sept worlds" in the space of a year before turning the tide.

>>50756188
>I said "could" not "would".

Could or would it's still wrong. For example, the Imperial Crusades were not existential threats to the Tau.

>No, the Tau held them off (barely and at great cost) for long enough

No, defeated. The first crusade was blunted at Dal'yth and was being encircled by the Tau reinforcement from other septs. The Imperials were withdrawing before news of behemoth reached them. Also the Tau 4th ED codex says that the Imperial crusade chances of victory were virtually non-existent

And the second crusade was a curbstomp in favor of the Tau.

>Gorgon started as a splinter of Behemoth and was small compared to other Hive fleets. IT was not "full scale".

Reread the 5th ED Tyranid codex (Gorgon section) and tell me what it says, you liar.

Also it's a full hive fleet. A minor one but still a hive fleet. With a unique super adaptation powers.

>And you'll note that in the War of Dakka they lost three "sept worlds" in the space of a year before turning the tide.

And you'll note that the Orks formed an empire nearby Tau space until Farsight dismantled it.

>>50755136
One time the Jokearo of all xenos made the Deathwatch run for their lives.

>>50749036
Think humanity before the Dark Age of Technology, in the galaxy with extant Eldar empire, orks and minor xenos everywhere.
They too were a fledgling nation of high-tech newcomers where Eldar or Orks or some league of xenos could wipe them out, but nobody did. And Imperium before the Heresy too was a sane regime, if rough a bit.

If Tyranids won't nom them, the Tau might become new galaxy-spanning empire while humans go extinct/go full psyker and inna Webway/gypsy it out in nomadic fleets on the outskirts like the Eldar did. The difference being that the Tau are barely psychic so disappearance of Eldar and (most) Humans may make Warp tame again.

>>50755545
Actually, Star Trek has been all over the place in terms of scale; especially if you go back to the Original Series. The franchise did get better on the issue as it matured, but there were still frequent occasions when a writer dropped the ball.

For example, I was just rewatching DS9, and in the episode where Lt. Worf is recruited to come to the station and help deal with the Klingons Worf just shows up a couple of days after Sisko calls for him. This happens despite the Klingon monastery Worf was spending his leave being at least a week away at high warp (over 9.9).

>>50756313
Full-scale Imperial crusades have hundreds of ships and millions of troops. They spend decades fighting to conquer whole sectors, seizing control of worlds by the dozen. They are frequently, in some cases continuously, reinforced by the Imperium at large.

The Tau have never faced a challenge on that scale. They have never faced something like the Sabat's Worlds crusade or the Angevin Crusade. They would be defeated by such an onslaught, and only the fact that forces on that scale are better used elsewhere is saving them.

>>50756733
The lore says that those were full-scale Imperial crusade. The latest crusade featured a hundreds of billions and enough tanks for the fluff to say that ONE of the battles there was one of biggest tank battles in Imperial history.

Bend over all you like but the Tau faced a full scale Imperial invasion and they won.

>>50756858
It also featured bears riding leprechauns firing lasers from their eyes and stone golems fashioned to look like the emperor!

>>50756880

>weeeh muh imperium GW plz nerf tau fluff

>>50756950
>we wuz beating imperial crusades

>>50756993
Don't make me pull lore from the codexes and rulebooks.

>>50757033
Go ahead and link it doesn't change the fact that the tau are special snowflakes who get let off the hook everytime. When they actually get into real fights and actually make sacrifices like every other race in the lore i will be interested until then i will keep taking a giant shit on their face.

>>50757072

So when Holy Terra gets beseiged by an unstoppable army and wins via literal magic, its fine.

But when the Tau face a single crusade and tarpit them to victory through tactics and short supply lines, its bullshit.

???

>>50757072
They just recently lost the supreme leader of their race, their Third Sphere Expansion ground to a halt and their Empire was cut in half.

What more do you want? The faction to be squatted?

>>50756880
No it didn't idiot

>>50757216

They want humans to be the good guys again. The don't see that the Tau having the moral highground makes the rest of 40k MORE grimdark, not less.

It has never been the case that the Imperium is doing all of this terrible shit to its own people because its NECESSARY in the name of survival. The Imperium does all this horrible shit to its own citizens because its easier than changing their ways. And that's terrible.

Other human cultures encountered during the Great Crusade didn't even have problems with Chaos, and their solution was to simply not be an iron fisted theocratic fascist state. The Tau are just doing the same with, but upping the ante by not being controlled by humans.

>>50757279
Speak for yourself i want Grimdark for the Tau so that they are actually interesting and seem like they belong in the 40K universe instead of being shoe horned in all disgusting and mary sued like with their retarded immunity to everything that makes the 40K universe so grimdark and dangerous.

>>50756165
No the Imperium is not decreasing. The latest Rulebook states it is larger now than it has ever been.

Additionally we know the Achilus Crusade recently conquered 60+ Systems, the Angevin Crusade conquered over 200 planets and the Blackfang Crusade conquered a further two systems just to name the first three I could think of.

Beside the Rulebook states its canon that the Imperium in the 41st Millenium is larger than its ever been

>>50757309

> its not interesting if it doesn't have skulls on it

Don't you have homework you should be doing? Its due tomorrow.

>>50757325
>everyone who disagrees with me is a child
Shouldn't you be playing with your trains?

>>50757324

God damn, GW. What the fuck are you doing?

The Imperium has been in decline since the game started, and now you pull this shit.

I swear these retcons are going to kill me one day. Lately, GW doesn't seem happy with a book unless it takes a faction and does a complete 180.

>>50757324
Not that anon but I am interested, all the anons saying the Imperium is losing, can you please give examples?

Cause I often get pissed off at how none of the Marine Special Characters ever seem to lose any Wars but the big shots from other factions constantly fall flat on their fucking faces the moment a marine walks in

>>50756858
>hundreds of billions
I'm calling bullshit on that