How will the T'au Empire survive?

>>54275824
They won't. No one will. That's the point.

>>54275824
The Tau defeated them all and conquered a swathe of the east.

The Sautekh Necrons are busy with the Absorption Wars. Ultramar is busy with the Death Guard. The Tyranids are just recovering from their recent defeats. Charadon Orks were defeated by Ultramar.

The Tau have no one to stop them.

>>54275824

Plot armor. They shouldn't have even survived the first sphere of expansion, let alone the third and damocles.

>>54275824
My guess is a mix of alliances of convenience and just everyone else being busy with their own life or death struggles. The t'au might annex a world but they want it to be a nice place, essentially. You can actually come take it back later and there's still a usable planet, not a barren rock or something, so you have time to focus on threats that are less gentle to what they conquer.

>>54275824
Of the Space Marine chapters, the Ultramarines probably have among the most cordial relationships with the Tau. An entente with Ultramar is more possible than it sounds. From there, the Water caste can start schmoozing Tau into human space.

>>54275824
They're survive by continuing to bring in the mecha-anime weeb crowd and making GW money.

>>54275824
As a Tau fan I'd say without plot armor they would not survive. Tau are the smallest and weakest faction.

Realistically what will happen is that they'll spread out while everyone else is busy like >>54275889 says but when everyone's business is taken care of the Tau will then lose their new territory. These defeats will show that the Tau can lose but in reality it will just be a return to the status quo for them. They'll then return to plot armor defense and the occasional failed attack.

>>54275824
Hopefully they won't survive.

>>54275824
Hadex anomaly looks like a C'tan or necron stuff, I mean the place is surrounded by warp yet its not entirely covered in it. There has to be something struggling against the incoming hell.

Necrons don't thoroughly control those large swathes, more so, here be necrons

>>54275992
Probably, mostly cause the ultrasmurfs are the extension of GW

>>54275824
DG, chaos, and Ultramarines are busy in their corner

>>54275993
this

>>54276141
The Hadex Anomaly is a Warp Storm, full of Chaos forces that were fighting the Achillus Crusade during the 800s of M41. It's a part of the setting of the Deathwatch RPG, and it looks like it's significantly expanded in size during the formation of the Cicatrix Maledictum.

So, basically, the Tau's closest neighbor is an Eye of Terror-sized warp storm inhabited by an empire of Chaos assholes that used to be the Imperium of Man's Achillus Sector. Possibly also including Chaos Tau, since a number of worlds in the Achillus Sector were settled by Tau during the era of Achillus Crusade.

>>54275992
There's still a lot of enemies surrounding them even if a ceasefire happens with Ultramar. Necron tech is arguably superior and the Sautekh Dynasty actual outnumbers the T'au dramatically. In fact every faction except the Death Guard could overwhelm the T'au when it comes to army size.
On a somewhat unrelated note the name change for the Tau isn't really out of nowhere, the center of the Empire is the T'au Sept.

>>54275881
>>54275907
>>54275993
>>54276009
I will never understand why someone would want to play a faction that only exists because of plot armor. Not that it matters but I am the OP. T'au are a wannabe Federation in an universe that should have annihilated them ages ago.

>>54276376

Most Tau players play the faction because they're faggots, they like mechas, or they are old Tau players from when the lore was less retarded and Tau were actually a plausible minor species hidden away in their small corner of space surrounded by xenos auxiliary allies.

There's a reason nobody plays Tau because "they have the most reasonable and plausible lore".

>>54276261
>Necron tech is arguably superior

Their crypteks can teleport shit into other dimensions just for shits and giggles without using the Warp. Their tech surpasses even Eldar tech.

Tau Empire will collapse but refugees will join the Farsight Enclave for Tau Empire 2 electric boogaloo

>>54276432
The fact there is already a T'au splinter faction proves their failure as a potential galactic power.

>>54276479
Like almost every other faction?

>>54276431
I'm a Necron player so I was trying to avoid sounding biased.

>>54276376

Everyone has plot armour though
Unless you're tyranids, in which case even your codex is a book of your failures

>>54276376
I play them because I like their aesthetic, the lighter shade of grey they present in the lore, and because I like the idea of a shooty, mobile army over most other styles.

File: please-explain_o_1064667.jpg (73KB, 540x524px) Image search: [Google]

73KB, 540x524px

>>54276504

>>54276540
Fair enough in hindsight I came off a little too rude.

>>54276426
>when the lore was less retarded and Tau were actually a plausible minor species hidden away in their small corner of space surrounded by xenos auxiliary allies


What was so different?
sorry, kind of a newb here.

>>54276376
So I should only play necrons?

The tau will do what they always do, build up their forces and get uppity, eventual they will piss off the imperium and millions of guardsmen will show up with thousands of marines. The tau will outclass the imperium in everyway, with some new battlesuit thats folded a thousand times, but theres no victory to be had against the grinding way the guard make war combined with the blitzkreig that marines wage. Eventually everyone gives up and goes home.

>>54276615
Where did I say that? All I'm saying is that the T'au Empire's size forces them to be Mary Sues, since any large defeat would likely cause their extinction.

>>54276540
>>54276376
Old Tau player here.

Their lore wasn't that much better back in the day. plenty of plot armor in it.
I started tau for the following reasons.

1. I was new to 40k and so were the tau
2. I wanted to do something that was opposite to my bretonnian fantasy army of the time
3. I liked the look of armored companies and steel legion troops, but their cost was prohibative at the time. and Tau looked operator as fuck jumping out of a devilfish in the original box art.
4. i liked the niaveity and optimism of the tau mirroring the role of humans in many other sci-fi settings

and last but actually most importantly

5. Some one was selling their tau army SUPER cheap right at the right time.

>>54276693
Good points, I admittedly like the cold war sci-fi look that a lot of T'au models have.

>>54276525
Not really fair to Tyranid players, but how many successful battles can the space locusts get before the setting is literally lifeless?

>>54276541
There are thousands of human splinters rebels heretics and independent realms
Eldar, dark eldar and orks are not unified
Ditto chaos and necrons

Only tyranid are really unified

>>54276693
There was less plot armor though, there were only about 500 space marines there and 19 guard regiments at Damocles 1; which, when compared to shit like Armageddon and the 13th Black Crusade. The Damocles Crusade was basically a The Emperor Hates Fags rally.

Compared to shit like the Zeist Crusade that had 1000 marines and Tau deflected it more or less effortlessly, and Damocles 2 where they capped a chapter master (invented pretty much so they could cap him). And then the one thing the Imperium did that hurt the Tau in Damocles 2 got immediately negated 5 minutes later by the Great Rift.

>>54276785
>which, when compared to shit like Armageddon and the 13th Black Crusade.
For some reason I didn't finish that thought. The comparison obviously, was that Armageddon and the 13th both make Damocles 1 look minuscule. The 13th for example, had like 20x more Guardsmen in Cadian regiments alone.

>>54276779
Absolutely true but you must admit proportionally the Farsight Enclaves is far larger than anyone else's rebel splinters.

The fuck is going on in this thread? Does nobody actually read the lore?

First off, Tau have the luxury of being small but dense, all their worlds are pretty close together so you fuck with one ant and you unleash the hive on whatever they are fighting. Second because tgey are small most people have better things to do than fuck with the tiny but powerful empire they gain nothing from fucking with, third even if somebody comes along and wipes out the main Tau empire a fucktillion splinter fleets full of settlers and colonists have been flung through the warp to all corners of the galaxy in the fourth sphere expansion and now in the fifth sphere expansion they are more of a military might than ever.

All of that is how they will survive as a species and an idea for the rest of the 40k timeline.

>>54276876
>HUR DUR THEY'RE DENSE

You should be a GW writer, your absolute lack of knowledge about physics and astronomy is about as egregious as theirs.

>>54276876

they should have about as many planets per AU as the empire.... its not like their planets bunched up to help them, all within walking distance of one another

and while the new fluff dispersed them all over the map, the question was how they made it up until now, not how they will keep on trucking

>>54277029
Physics and astronomy utterly do not matter in 40k lore. The fact that you think they do speaks wonders of how little you understand the setting.

What matters is shit like how every war with the Tau has been on their turf, and how 2,000 superhumans is not enough to topple a space empire yet they still fought to an arguable draw, so sorry that apparently being able to stave off the mighty space marines makes them mary sues.

If you honestly need your power fantasy to be that all-encompassing I'd suggest you start jacking off to something else.

The number of marines and how it is expected to matter on a scale of star systems I never understood. And that is the core of 40k to boot

>>54277164
A better question is how Ultramar has survived than the Tau Empire. There's only one point of armor between them yet there's millions of fire Warriors and only 1,000 Ultra Marines

>>54277146
>Physics and astronomy utterly do not matter in 40k lore.
This. The Tau literally built their empire and defended it on sublight engines.

>>54277146
>HUR DUR JUST SUSPEND YOUR DISBELIEF ON HOW ASTRONOMICAL UNITS WORK

Like I said, you have no idea how physics works.

Tau lifespans and pre-FTL wouldn't even have supported their interstellar empire, because star systems CAN'T exist that densely packed.

>>54277246

ultramar repects the tau... something something... ultramarines soloed the tyranids

>>54277260
>Tau shouldn't even exist

You're hurting your own argument, moron. You think people who brought up astronomy wouldn't know that obvious as fuck fact?

>>54277286
Did you actually think I was agreeing with that guy? Here's some reading to do my angry friend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

>>54277270
I know how physics works, that's besides the point.

If 40k being a fantasy setting upsets you, you should take your autism back to spacebattles.com

>>54277270
Its space fantasy anon, not hard science fiction.

You really can't play this game when talking 40k especially when relating to space marine numbers and fluff.

>>54276562
It's fine. Just figured i'd explain at least one viewpoint for why they're enjoyable.

They are in a strategically terrible position, but the other factions don't see them as any particularly pressing threat given how huge the other threats in the universe are. The Tau have always been a relatively small empire, underneath the notice of everybody else especially the Imperium. This works in their favour because if anybody actually did notice them for long enough to seriously attack them, they'd be fucked.

The Tau strike a careful balance because they need to stay under the radar. Compared to Chaos, Tau aren't as widespread or categorically dangerous, therefore they aren't subject to any serious campaigns.