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mastermead — FOR THE GREATER GOOD
Published: 2008-01-31 22:19:35 +0000 UTC; Views: 36604; Favourites: 390; Downloads: 1980
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Sure, the Tau might be a bunch of weaboo commies with a naive and hypocritical philosophy, but they look damn good. Well, apart from the battle suits, which frankly look like what Lada would make if they were into mech design.Related content
Comments: 90
DONT MOCK TAU!!!! (hypocritical? how)
but lovely art - seriosuly - love it! +fav
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The Tau are hypocritical because in one hand they say "We are going to bring peace to the world and spread the Greater Good throughout the galaxy", and in the same breath it continues with "if you resist, we will destroy you."
Thing is, is that this sounds just like the Imperium and the Eldar, who both have their own agendas where you can either play along and submit...or you can die.
The only difference here is that the Tau sound much nicer when they say it.
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true - but you can look at it this way: the tau at least have an 'honest' goal...
the eldar is a dying race... tau is prospering
imperium is... imperium... the moment they overstretch their resources heretics, traitors, chaos, weaboos and whatnots move in to party
i like the tau because they, appart from O'Shova, all apear to work towards a common goal - they're united, they have a purpose, and they look cool
FYI i'm still in the process of making a six-winged gundam-styled conversion of a crisis suit 
[link]
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just saw your comment) but the tau arnit really as united as you think the book kill team where they were asked by the water chast meber coldwind to kill the tau comander brightsword because any sign of disint by the tau would completly ruin there image of "the greater good" just thout you shuold know that despite there apperinces the tau areint as united as they lead others to belive
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true true - the farsight schism is a big one
but then again, its not really been expanded that much on - at least not compared how much lore there is on most of the other armies.
still, i'd look forward to a tau civil war - or alternatly a 1984-ification of the tau in their next codex
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indeed they do need to expand futher on the farsight schism and its causes(wethear hes been crupted by chaos or learned a terriable secert of the etherals or someother reason)
as for your tau civle war/1984 i can honestly say that a civle war betwwen the tau is only possiable if the farsight encalves are involved the rest of tau socity is likely to go the 1984 route ( because upwards of 99.999999999999% percent of the tau beilve in the tau'va and by that extent the etherals and roll over when ever the etherals say so)
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i recall i once thought about writting a fanfic centered around an imperial human colony system that got taken into the tau empire - only to screwed over by an ethereal who would say that the Tau species was more important for equality than others. you know, first class/second class citizens. fun stuff to follow, mainly the local water caste admin going all "wtf why humans here supposed to be treated worse? aren't we all equal" and then the ethereal gets all pimp-slap his ho-bitch... good times
but equally, then Tau serve an important purpose the way they are right now - they are the light which make the grimdark so much more darker. sure, i can understand why the farsight schism could be interesting to expand upon, but if the Tau become grimdark, then all the other factions become less... if you know what i mean. The tau are the beacon light in a sea of shit - you know something bad will happen eventually, but they are atm the one source of hope and true untainted idealism in the 40K lore.
it might be annoying that this factor could hinder their natural development - but GW could just as well be dicks and simply reunite farsight with the empire, keeping the lore intact by saying that while the ethereals are ok with what he's doing (he is trying to pwn shit for the greater good, just not the way the ethereals originally wanted it) then he's still too far from the septs to get frequent resupply, so farsight armies are still subject to the unit limitations.
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sorry for nor posting sooner, indeed the ehterals let all there bitches know who in charge AND they come complete with pimp staff
as you said the tau do serve as a sort of candle light in the darkness of space but they are young and they will learn
as for the farsight schism I'm not up on your wretched Xenos politics and physiology(word is that chaos has possed farsight)and there are factions in the empire that are against farsights take names and kick attitude this was the whole idea of the last chancers book kill team as iv said,brightsowrd(the target) learned from farsight and i think the only reason other factions of the tau haven't done something is A.)they need to keep "the greater good" looking infallible so moving against him while hes technical done nothing wrong would show the greater good for the sham it is and the system would fall apart and B.)farsight has amassed so much influence that if his followers ever discovered that one of there own killed him a civil war would start as you suggested.
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nah
i honestly doubt GW will move the lore in a direction that'll grimdarken the tau
as for why there's no word on why more dont do it like farsight...
well, its honestly not been explored much in the writtings or codexes - we simply wont know anything untill there's a new codex
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Oh, and I like the conversion for the Crisis Suit.
You should make him your force commander
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he's a converted O'Shova - the close combat crisis suit special char...
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Oh, sweet!
I recall that as a CC Leader he is not all that and a bag of chips (at least in comparison to Eldar, Chaos, 'Nids and Orks at any rate), but he is nothing to laugh at.
Is that who the character is going to be, or is this one your usual shooty monster leader?
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Its supposed to be a converted special char - i bought the original O'Shova char and used the sword, the ear-bits and the special sheild generator in the conversion.
but if he'll be used as a CC slaugthermachine (no armor save, +4 inv save, +3 armor save, 4wounds if i recall right, 10ld - thats nothing to joke around with) - or if i'll use him as the head of the seven samurais and deep strike the lot down for some shooty mayhem (which can be VERY devastating, with fireknives or helios suits all around)
of course - one mustnt forget another important function of flashy special chars: they're flashy. If i can get my enemy to focus fire on a +4 inv save instead of my broadswords or hammerheads, just because of the "hey, it'd be cool to kill his special char muhahaha" then its my win, because firepower-wise i wouldn't stand to loose much...
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Heh... that is a mistake that is often made in a lot of cases agaisnt character models. There ARE exceptions to this of course in that some characters you cannot afford to leave alone.
For example Abbadon the Despoiler. Yes, you don't have to worry about him too much as a range combat threat because he has little that is treatening. However, you NEED to get rid of him before he gets into close combat because he will slaughter you.
As far as your CC guy goes, Power Weapon, 3+/4+ invul and 4 wounds and 10 init is not bad...but how many attacks does he have? What is his weapon skill? Those are very important as well, because looking at what you have he sounds a whole lot like a Space Marine Chaplain with an extra wound.
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thats the trick - he isn't much more than a deep striky chaplain (who can have SEVEN crisis suits with him in, all decked out to the max) for ranged shooting he has a single plasma rifle (rapid fire ap 2 S6 if i'm not wrong)
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Yeah.... he seems on the high end of average when it comes to close-combat awesomeness. A Chaplain has 3 base attacks, +1 for having 2 close-combat weapons. Now, I can see how this would be awesome for a Tau player...
Anyway, yeah, I can see the badassery here. Thing of it is, is that with 7 Crisis suits, that is NOT something to ignore for a variety of reasons...and I would gladly send any of my Close-Combat forces into that mess...especially after they deep-strike close enough to shoot me with their plasma rifles. Yeah, I would give up a round of shooting to take down a squad that size - that is insane to let that sit around for any length of time.
Before this turns into a "my army list/tatics are better than your army list/tatics" conversation, I would like to point out that you don't know what army(ies) I play or how I play them, nor do we have a list to make comparisons about. Lastly, this is not the place to do it either.
All that said; yes...this guy is a monster and in a properly built list and strategy, he could be a great distraction or a monster that requires a LOT of attention lest it goes off and does something creepy and mean.
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true - and combined with a second commander unit with the gizmo that allows me get reserves in from the 2nd turn at +2 rolls (only one reserve at a time though then), allowing me to pretty much select what i want in...
and a tau scout transport's beacon gizmo (damn i need to find my codexies, just moved) which allows me to reroll deep strike scatter rolls (I think) then we are talking ouch..
oh and i dont need to strike down anywhere near rapid fire range... crisis suits can be equiped with 50" range S7 ap3 (i think) rock packs, things similar to melta-guns, and they also have this special rule that basically goes "can fire rapid fire and heavy weapons even if they moved that round" - which means full fire for effect on the turn they deep strike in...
so no matter what - then its IMO not as much a question of 'do you have enough melee troops back guarding your heavy stuff' as "will i have anything left... at all"
oh and remember target locks and multitrackers - target lock allows a model (after passing LD check from boss of group) to fire on a seperate target from the rest of the group. multitrackers allows the model to fire TWO WEAPONS (and a crisis suit can actually be pimped out with 3...)
but yes - depending on what they come up against that may or may not be the most effective... ofc the crisis suits can be decked out in anything from melta weapons, S7 A3 long range rockets, to A3 S5 swarm killers or flame throwers... so it really just depends on what suit combos you take (which makes making the suits a nightmare of either magnets or 'take-all-comers' setups...)
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The problem though, is that for the most part, with rare exceptions, if it is in range for you to shoot at it, it is in range for me to hurt it too. Again, rare exceptions. Sure, you have the long-range weak Crak missiles - but you can't do more than kill troops with it.
Considering that I play Chaos anymore, I am not concerned about AP3 weapons. Why? Thousand Sons (my favorites!) have a 4+ invul save. Death Guard are T 4(5) with Feel No Pain. So I still get a 4+ to ignore any wounds from it. If it is against my Marines, the only thing those missiles will be in range to do anything with would be my vehicles, and to be honest S7 is not enough to pop tanks or dreads. It really isn't.
While I know that you have weapons that can inflict pain on those sorts of units I mentioned (one reason why I wanted to avoid this sort of conversation), but to get close enough to use them, you would need to get within my guns...and I like guns. A lot.
In any event, going to my Chaos army I am not concerned about surviving your gunfire. I'm really not, because untill you start throwing S8+ AP3 stuff, I am not worried about my Deathguard, and you have nothing that negates Invul saves.
And moving and shooting heavy weapons is not an issue with me, as Terminators do the exact same thing. The only difference is, is that your Crisis Suits get to move again in the Assault Phase if they want. No big deal there.
As an answer to your question of "do you have enough melee troops back guarding your heavy stuff' as "will i have anything left... at all", I will simply say this: Abbadon the Despoiler attached to 10 Plague Marines. You cannot throw enough at them to take out all 10, as they will likely shrug off just about everything you throw at them.
As far as having numbers to get into close combat...I just need Abbadon.
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true - but then again, the afforementioned tactic is best against things like IG where they have mostly stationary artillery positions and stuff that really shouldn't be forced to move too much...
and against any marine army i'd use a different tactic - chaos, even more so...
i've seen tau armies consisting of +200 fire warriors... now thats a lot of feel no pain saves to make
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Mmm... True. But I poitned out that I pretty much play Chaos from the beginning. And I am also in the camp of making a "Take on all commers" army too, so I try to balance and optimize my forces with what works the best overall - not tailor my list to fight against a specific opponent.
That said, I am still experementing with the new Chaos Codex, and I find that I like Thousand Sons a lot (and I have for a long time anyway). Given the new rules and such, I am also thinking about throwing some Deathguard/Plague Marines into the mix as well. If you will notice, I have not spoken at all about Noise Marines or Berzerkers....because I simply don't use them at all.
Anyway, yeah, that is a lot of shooting...but I honestly have to wonder why someone would bother putting 200+ shots onto a single squad. Especially a squad that has all T5 models. Even spreading fire won't get a lot of effectivness out of it, especially with T5 models that get a Feel No Pain save in addition to an armor save.
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well if its S5 wpns vs T5 dudes - its a even cut - and 200 shots... well that would be because of those feel no pain rules?
hehe
but the beaty of tau and the figures there is that its very easy to kit out the crisis suits so that, depending on what kinda game i need them for, then can play different roles. and swapping turrets and guns on a hammerhead (to ion-head, or if i need another transport) then thats that
so i dont need to pack much 'extra' stuff really - and any extra points needing to be used can be added as hardwired crisis systems
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Actually no it wouldn't. I ran the numbers earlier (and spared you the painful bath breakdown), and this is what I found out:
- 200 shots from BS 3 would mean that 100 shots would hit (4+ is 50%)
- 100 shots that hit would mean that only 50 of those shots would actually wound (4+ to wound)
- 50 wounds would mean that I would fail 16.667 (we will round this up to 17) armor saves (a 1 or 2 would fail to save and that is 1/3 of a D6 roll. 33% of 50 is 16.667).
- This means that out of your 200 shots, I would only have to make 17 Feel No Pain rolls...which is not a whole lot if you really think about it.
- When you realize that Feel No Pain works on a 4+, you are looking at actually killing 8 Plague Marines.
Yeah, that's 8 Plague Marines gone (going by the law of averages here), and that can be an entire squad or merely 20% of a squad (depending on how many Plague Marines you start with). But let me ask you something: Is it worth it? Most Tau forces are not going to have 200 firewarriors, and even fewer are going to devote every single firewarrior to lay fire upon one Plague Marine squad.
Again, the way I usually build my army lists is that I try to build them to be a "Take on all commers" sort of list, so I am usually not tailored to fight against any one particular opponent. I think it is more challenging (and rewarding) to play that way.
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mathhammering like that doesn't really work...
besides, you're forgetting potential hit roll bonuses from things like marker drones and all that hat - meh, if u ever get your butt kick by a tau army you can always try to learn from the experience
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If I started doing stuff like throwing marker drones and such in there for the Tau, then I would have to take similar things into account for Chaos.
This is not something that I am inclined to do to be honest.
Before I sat down and started crunching the numbers, I took the following things into account:
- There were 200 Firewarriors with no special wargear
- There were 20 Plague Marines, also with no speical wargear of any sort
- All Firewarriors were within maximum range (so all squads can hit), but out of Rapid-Fire range. This is possible, but not entirely likely.
In short, all I did was just compare the base attributes (S5 weapon, T5 target, 3+ armor save, Feel No Pain) and ran the numbers. What I came up with, is that on average (going by the laws of probibility here), out of 200 shots fired, you are only going to kill 8 Plague Marines.
When you start throwing other things such as Wargear, Drones, Demonic Gifts, etc. into account, it changes everything. I mean, for example, If I threw on an Aspiring Champion and gave him Terminator Armor...sure that is one individual out of the squad...but he is going to have a 2+ armor save AND T5 AND Feel No Pain. That would skew the whole arguement outright. Just as if your 200 Firewarriors were armed with those carbines (same Str, but are shorter range and Assault 2 if I recall correctly) instead of their rifles.
The point is, is that no I did not forget to take those into account, I chose to ignore them. Just like I also ignored the possibility that 200 fire warriors don't have anything better to shoot at than a single squad of Plague Marines.
But you are right, crunching numbers like that doesnt work too well. If it did, people wouldn't actually play and would just sit down and with pencils, paper and calculators and dictate their victories (or defeats) that way.
As far as fighting against the Tau... I have played several games against them with the 4th Edition rules and I the worst I have done is getting a "Draw". They had more Victory Points at the end of the game, but not enough to count as a victory.
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The Imperium is pretty well straightforward in telling you want it wants. They state simply: "Surrender or die" (if you are human - if you are not, then it's just "Die").
The Tau say the exact same thing, but tend to beat around the bush and be far more diplomatic about it. Either way, the message is the same and in comparison, the Imperium seems far more honest about it to me.
And yes, the Eldar are supposedly a dying race. I say supposedly, because depsite thair racial plight, they are still a force to be reckoned with in the galactic theatre. A craftworld could, if properly placed, be used to colonize an entire star system - considering that the Eldar have more craftworlds than the Tau have star systems, that is a pretty heavy population. I hardly consider that "dying out".
Not to really stomp all over the Tau, as I can see that you are a fan of the race, I am simply stating the facts as they have been presented by the fluff of the 40K universe and that in the 40K universe, there are no real "good guys".
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no you're right - but like i said before, while the imperium has scale they dont really have that much cohetion or internal loyalty... i mean - how many IG vs SM battles haven't there been?
chaos is heavily populated by humanity as well - blow by blow i'd argue that Tau would have it a lot easier managing something twice the size of what they have now as opposed to the imperium.
but its all good - you'll all submit to either the greater good or the greater guns
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Actually, in a way they do. The reason why there are IG/Sisters of Battle vs. Space Marines is because Space Marines actually reside OUTSIDE of the Imperium's control. Each Marine Chapter is pretty much self-sufficient for the most part (some are more self-sufficent than others), and they ONLY answer to the Emperor...and, in some cases the =][=nquisition.
Space Marines will arbitrarily strike out at those that they feel are "Tainted" or "Corrupted". They will also plow through forces just to take out a corrupt planetary governor. The bottom line is that NOBODY tells the Space Marines what to do. Nobody. All they can do is ASK (or even beg) for assistance. Nothing more.
Actually, the Tau would find managing something on the scale of the Imperium just as difficult - if not moreso because the Tau lack Psykers and any way of communicating (much less navigating) through the Warp. Remember, the Tau lack any form of FTL drives, and so are limited to a very VERY painful degree in space. To get to another star system, it could take them 30 or 40 years (if they are going at nearly lightspeed - and a suitable star system is within 30 light years). The Imperium can traverse that same distance in a few days, if that.
That said; no, the Tau have absolutly NO chance of managing anything anywhere NEAR the sheer scale of the Imperium. Period. They have no way of moving forces from world to world quickly enough and no way of communicating any faster.
To be honest, the reason why the Tau are allowed to prosper, is not due to their superior technology or firepower. They are allowed to prosper because the Imperium has more important things to do and divert their resources to instead.
Again, not to trash on the Tau, but those are the facts - on the galactic scale, the Tau are painfully insignificant and would succumb to sheer attrition by lack of resources and manpower, while the Imperium would crush them by sheer weight of numbers alone
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The Taus aren't even on the map when it comes to galactic domination however. Unlike any of the other races, they simply cannot move and communicate fast enough to manage and maintain a larger empire than the wee-tiny little bit of the galaxy they currently own.
They are very strong for their size though.
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considering how NOT well the imperium manages their own... i mean - they're more likely to have a dozen worlds eaten up by the next dark crusade before any form of counter-offence can be mounted, then i think the tau are doing very well, not overstretching their resources
pebble?
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The thing is that the imperium have tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of worlds, losing a dozens of world is only temporary as once they counter-attack they will either claim them back (which is nearly sure to succeed it might just take a while), or simply destroy them and then go colonise new worlds to replace the losses.
On the other hand, the Taus have only a said dozen of worlds. I don't know if you ever seen the galactic map, but the Tau empire is a small blue dot. If you want a direct comparison, for every fire warrior in the Tau empire, the humans have a whole planet filled with soldier.
The Tau, on their own term, are pretty powerful, but their scale is microscopic. And having no warp presence, thus no ability to Warp Travel, makes it impossible for them to have an empire of much larger scale than they currently have. It basically takes them longer to go through their own tiny empire than it takes the other races to traverse the whole galaxy (although they don't need to be afraid of losing anything in the process)
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you're right - but like i said before, while the imperium has scale they dont really have that much cohetion or internal loyalty... i mean - how many IG vs SM battles haven't there been?
chaos is heavily populated by humanity as well - blow by blow i'd argue that Tau would have it a lot easier managing something twice the size of what they have now as opposed to the imperium.
but its all good - you'll all in the end submit to either the greater good or the greater guns
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Twice as big as the Tau empire is still barely half as big as a single segmentum...
[link] , maps speaks for themselves xD
Unless the Tau devellop a form of webway or something, they're stuck.
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The Tau fight the Orcs, and if they survive the green tide long enough, they will get their hands on the Orcish warptravel technologies and maybe even on their teleport technology.
Or they "convince" the Kroot to share their warptravel technology with them.
If GW does not crap the fluff like they did too often.
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Nonononono, they tried that already.
It's because the Tau have no Warp signature (which also explain why they have no Psykers). They litterally get kicked out of the warp. In fact, that's what their current travel method consists of. It's bouncing off the warp. (kinda like forcing a air balloon into a water puddle, it'll throw it out)
MUCH slower than actual warp travel, but also safer and more consistent, allowing precise navigation calculation (unlike Warp travel, which have pretty random speed and is highly dangerous)
The only way I see the Tau forming an actual galactic empire, would be to have it's fleet organised by a warp-capable race such as the kroot or humans, or magically find a way to use the webway (which is quite unlikely). But such depandance on Xenos ressource wouldn't make it any more stable or fonctionnal than any other race, since only the Tau themselves are "brainwashed" by the Ethereals, and would literrally be a new human empire, subject to all the same weaknesses. In fact, without an "god-emperor" to "guide" them it would probably fall apart even faster.
It's not to their advantage to control the whole galaxy.
And Farsight is a proof that the Tau aren't immune to intestine troubles and bickering. They're far from immune from their own form of a potential self-nuking such has happened in the Dark Age of Tech or a betrayal such as Horus'.
Also, Tau being non-psychic, would have no good defense against fully awakened 'crons.
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The necron's technology is just completly beyond reach... they're even more advanced than Eldars (and you can't reverse-engineer the vast majority of their equipment since you cannot get ahold of such pieces, they just vanish). Also, the Tyranids have a form of Warp Travel actually.
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Another way would be to make use of the tyranids methods, they have no ftl technology, or somehow make use of the necrons inertialess drive (If they can get it to not disappear). Of course the problem with this is that both races are completely hostile and have ways of doing things that so far nothing else has been able to replicate... Also if any of the major galaxies decided that they didn't want the Tau around any more then, in a nutshell, the Tau would be stuffed.
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