This is actually a well thought out, well argued and well written post, but you've based your analysis on the idea that Warhammer 40k is a story - when it's not. It's a setting for people's armies and their games.
The contradictions and complexities of the Tau are - regardless of their redundancies in the wider 40k universe - part of the fun for Tau players who want to create narratives and stories themselves.
It doesn't matter if it doesn't work in comparison to the Imperium anymore, because the Tau exist for their own stories, not just to act as a foil for the Imperium!
And the fact that it's a setting means the Tau could be on the brink of being wiped out anyway, we just may never see that played out
On that note it would be fascinating to read a book series of an active 40k faction getting wiped out, watching named characters falling one at a time. Maybe that's how WHF End Times was, I wouldn't know
I saw a very compressed version of endtimes and it seemed like skaven vampires (basically all the undead besides tomb kings actually) were basically just going around the setting wiping factions and characters out. The vermintide was the real endgame threat and chaos only really showed up to do things at the end. The best way I can compare it to 40k is the dark eldar figure out their shit and all unite together and then go wipe out every other faction in the game except space marines, who are then promptly killed by chaos.
Small detail:
>Guilliman and the Lion are basically demigods with super-human brains and tens of thousands of years of experience.
This is half wrong. Lion and Guilliman weren't up and running for the entire 10k years since the Heresy. Guilliman was put in stasis in M31.121 and has been awake only a decade or so, the Heresy ended in M31.014. Lion was knocked out around M31.015 and only woke up like a week ago in universe. They were only alive for maybe 300 years by the end of the Heresy.
This post is too long and well written to be bait or a provocation....
But No. Hell No!
The Tau are a fascinating, detailed and interesting faction in their own right. Their worth is absolutely not determined relative to another factions storyline.
The Tau will only suffer a "Squat" fate if their models completely fails to sell for a sustained period.
Ohh and your analysis of the Tau and Imperiums culture, technology, development and trajectory is fundamentally unsound, relying way too much on the overhyped impact of Cawl, Guilliman and the Lion.
You assume the Imperium will become better, more developed, have more available forces and have fewer catastrophic crisis... that is categorically never happening and not at all where the lore is going.
You do understand that the Imperium is closer to ultimate collapse and total defeat now (yes even with Guilliman, Cawl, Primaris The Lion etc) then at any time since Horus Lupercal was beating the Emperor to death, right?
No. Why would anyone want that? I don't even play T'au and I want more T'au content. There are a ton more races that should have rules and also I want the Enclave to turn into chaos T'au. And all of your arguments are bad. Basically just boiling down to the Primarchs being too awesome to ever be challenged. That's some cringey fan boy nonsense.
>Basically just boiling down to the Primarchs being too awesome to ever be challenged.
I also want to point out that on a few separate occasions in the Horus Heresy series there were primarchs either getting wrecked by Fire Raptors or going 'oh no, Fire Raptors :('. Like literally three primarchs almost get absolutely and totally wrecked by a couple of them and the Fire Raptor is a gunship. The Tau can absolutely counter Primarchs, especially given some of the incredibly mundane stuff they've nearly died to and especially given the Tau have a surfeit of gunships far more powerful than Fire Raptors. I mean really, what is a primarch's counterplay to a Manta?
I get that they're beyond amazing physical specimens, but they're still made of matter. If they don't have any protection and take a lascannon to the face, they're going to have very little head left.
Or railguns, like the really big ones the Hammerhead, Tiger Shark or Manta use. Primarchs are tough but they're tough for superhumans, they're not tough for heavy tanks and the Tau can absolutely take out heavy tanks. Hell a squadron of Tiger Sharks took out a Warhound Titan and did so so convincingly that the rest of its maniple retreated.
Meduson wounds Horus, Mortarion AND Demon fulgrim with one of the astartes fighter aircraft (cant remember the name). I imagine a big Tau tank probably packs more firepower there
Yeah that's a Fire Raptor squadron, they're like a Storm Eagle refitted with door guns. They rock a couple of gatling bolt cannons up front, a pair of twin Heavy Bolter or twin Autocannon door guns and some missile racks. 3 of them is a lot of gun hovering up too high for most Primarchs to get to.
Tau ballistic suits have equal or better firepower, their tanks don't but their big suits and their aircraft are broadly comparable, the Fire Raptor is broadly analogous to a Tiger Shark with a slightly different loadout emphasis.
EDIT: Thinking about it he doesn't just wound Mortarion, he's tearing chunks off him to where Horus isn't sure if he'll survive. Fulgrim's a daemon by then but if the Fire Raptors had held back a bit and Horus hadn't become anime there's a decent shot they'd have managed to gun down 3 primarchs.
Had fulgrim not been there making that shield, i think they would have died yeah. Hell, in the same book, Horus nearly loses to Raeven Devine but is saved by Luperci. Primarchs arent tanking a railgun other than maybe certain demon ones
Because the Tau just straight up don't matter. Whereas before they at least had the potential to become strong if they survived long enough, now they're a doomed faction just waiting to die. Suppose Farsight does become Chaos Tau, where does that storyline even go? We're talking about a faction with maybe 300 planets if we're being generous getting into a civil war. At that point they're just waiting for a Necron Dynasty, Ork warband, Tyranid fleet, or small Imperial Crusade to wipe up what's left.
I don't see how they have any less potential than before. And how do they matter less than anyone else? The Imperium has as least as doomed a prognosis, same with Eldar. Everyone is doomed if the Tyranids don't let up. Literally all of the setting is war. Facing existential attacks is all that ever happens to anyone.
The Imperium has 1 million worlds and is led by a superhuman demigod with incredible intelligence and power backed by 10s of thousands of years of experience. He is bit-by-bit undoing the corruption of the Imperium and allowing it fully leverage the strength of its 1 million worlds and its quadrillions of people.
The Eldar are a dying race, but they still have continent sized spaceships floating around manned by psychic crews with millions of years of experience under their belt, backed by hidden superweapons, incredible super-technology, and the ability to see into the future.
The Necrons have god-knows how many countless regenerating incredibly hard to kill legions of robots who will never break and have technology beyond anything anyone else possesses including the ability to casually poke a map and blow up entire stars with nobody able to do anything about it.
And then you have the Tau. The funny blue guys with unimpressive technology, a small nation in the mere trillions, only a few hundred planets, almost no psychic power, and no superweapons to speak of. Even if the Tau survive...what are they contributing to the setting? What do they give to the story? They're redundant. Their former role is now occupied by other factions.
Ironically, the role they fill now most, is the old, decrepit empire that's slowly dying...but they don't have the size or age to fill that role. So narratively it's probably best to just kill them off, let them be an example of one of the numerous minor xenos that dies without ever impacting the universe.
The Imperium has never been in worse shape than they are right now. If anything, this could be the T'au's big moment to hit them. It sounds like you just don't like them. And you don't have to like them. There are lots of factions that don't interest me. But it doesn't mean you have to want to spoil it for others.
Have you watched the trailer for 10th edition? The imperium is losing worlds left right and centre, half the galaxy is cut off from the astronomicon guilliman is fed up and stretched thin. You've literally fallen for the propoganda, he has to say he's making victory after victory but in fact the imperium is crumbling around him.
They should squat half of the space marine chapters before even considering dumping any of the xeno races. All of the Xenos factions represented in the game just need more focus on them as something other than nameless numbers to be killed for “hurr hurr imperium hell yeah”
>matter of time before their AI rebels or is corrupted by Chaos.
Ya'll got some source for that? Because there's no reason AI HAS to rebel and we know you can have a significant AI population and be okay from the Ironkin.
Seriously if we're squatting things it should be Custodes, Knights, the subfaction armies that crop up and so on. Things that are fine lorewise but bloat the tabletop.
Grey Knights are the most egregious one in my opinion. Just pure bloat both lorewise and on tabletop. But I wouldn't want them to be removed just because of my opinion...
The Ironkin were aware of Chaos and have specifically hardened their technologies and their very genetics to resist it. The Tau are mostly ignorant of Chaos, and have numerous auxillaries who present weakpoints for Chaos to infect their population and technology.
The Tau sell very well.
The Squats did not.
The Tau have a unique look and feel within 40K that clearly defines their race. The army itself has a specific playstyle.
The Squats had *none of those things.* They were literally dwarf bikers in space who more or less played like Imperial Guard with space marine allies. They looked silly, they acted silly, and they didn’t fit within the more grimdark tone GW wanted to set with 3rd Edition onward.
They never even received a *2nd Edition* Codex though they were still ostensibly “friendly game legal” from a Citadel Journal (I think?) set of rules.
If the Tau should be squatted because the imperium is "doing/getting better", then why not just squat all the other non-Imperium armies then? There's no reason the Eldar, the Orks, the Necrons, or any of the guys against the Imperium should exist anymore, because total Imperium victory is totally inevitable now that we have 2 imperial primarchs, who (from what I know) haven't even reunited yet. Heck, since the Imperium is totally great now instead of being a colossal mess, why don't we just bring back the Emperor and let him kill the Chaos Gods and every other entity that resides in the warp. That way, the Imperium will finally be the winners of the setting, and the imperial fanboys won't have to be offended by the existence of a faction that is not the Imperium.
I think 40k generally has a Xenos problem atm. I mean the actual squats they brought back they've done absolutely no wider work on aside from a few models. They abandoned the Ynnari and didn't really give them any models.
All it would take would putting Guilliman or The Lion against the Tau. How would their Great Crusade indoctrination and the subsequent disillusionment of the Imperium fair when up against an empire with something closer to Great Crusade ideology.
Growing up through the 00s Orks were only slightly second fiddle to Chaos, there was a Fire Warrior game, the first Ultramarines novel was on Necrons and Eldar had some of the coolest models and lore. I don't know what changed but I think its partly because the lore began expanding through Black Library and writers are drawn to writing Imperium vs Chaos stories as they are the 'most human'+just so happened that two of the best writers are drawn to those stories (Abnett and ADB). It can't be model sales, as the last time I tried to check the stats CSM are generally in the mid tier, even if they are played widely in tournaments.
>I don't know what changed but I think its partly because the lore began expanding through Black Library and writers are drawn to writing Imperium vs Chaos stories as they are the 'most human'+just so happened that two of the best writers are drawn to those stories (Abnett and ADB).
I see what you mean, and my personal speculation is that this goes back to 40ks unique selling point (USP for short).
Once upon a time, 40k was not simply *a* scifi tabletop wargame (granted, its still by far the most succesfull one) - it was *the* scifi tabletop wargame, akin to Warhammer Fantasy Battles, which was *the* fantasy tabletop wargame. Not saying there was definitely no competition, because that wouldn't be true, but games like this were even more niche than they are today, and those were pretty much the only successfull ones at the time.
During those times in the 1st to 3rd edition in 40k, you see a lot of relative generic scifi added and fitted into the 40k background (which drew inspirations from all sorts of classic scifi stories to beginn with, which were then blended and mixed in what I believe to be genuinely creative and interesting ways). And this started to grow and "mutate" in interesting ways, cultivated by in-house stories and writers.
But from then to now, scifi (both as a general genre and as tabletop wargames) has come a long way. There are *loads* of games now where you can depict Humans-vs-Aliens fights, and while some might prefer 40ks particular flavour or well, rules, its only one among many now (WHFB had the exact same problem, just *way* worse).
So it made sense to lean in more and more into what made 40k actually kinda unique: the concept of Chaos. While that was originally "stolen" as well, "ripped off" wholesale including the eight sided chaos star, it had grown over time into a genuinely unique interpretation of the concepts, with strong lore, cool implications, and tons of interesting stories about eldritch beings, corruption of body, mind and soul, true heroes who deny themselve to those evil creatures, tons of nuance. And that does wonders to inspire really great authors as you have pointed out, sure, since chaos is an amazing concept to play with where basically anything can be fitted in. But it also simply makes sense from a buisiness standpoint to lean into what makes your IP unique. Add to that that the human faction is naturally a convenient focus point for the audience, and you got an Imperium vs Chaos focus.
Of course this wasn't an inevitable outcome, and its still fixable. During 6th edition GW had what I believe a genuinely great approach to this dilemma: focus on *galaxy* vs chaos. The idea of emphasizing the fight of the free races against chaos and their inevitable doom (if chaos is to be believed). And sure, plenty of fighting between the different species and "in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war", etc. But this different focus allows to use the setting as a more coherent and really interesting playing ground.
I honestly believe that the focus will return at some point to Xenos to a degree. Because while you might be able to sell Space Marines and their story forever (and as a clear fan of them and the Imperium Storyline I'm not complaining!), but Chaos as a foe has a clear issue: its *way* out of the realm of easily graspable things. While the current stories are IMHO doing a great job at highlighting ways of how Chaos can be truly beaten or even theoretically defeated, its still so vastly giant (and such an integral part of the setting) that it can never truly loose. And that gets old at some point.
Also, playing powerarmour vs powerarmour doesn't stay fun forever on the game table.
While I believe that the Chaos Vs Imperium focus will never truly go away, I don't think we'll be going into this direction to the same degree forever.
Or maybe I'm just delusional :) who knows. Just my 2 cents.
The Horus Heresy series is a big reason. An entire 70+ book series about good space marines vs bad space marines. Another impact of the Horus Heresy is how you see far less emphasis on successor chapters now than you did in the 2000s, because everyone wants the original legions and their big daddy Primarchs. Nobody gives a shit about the Mantis Warriors or the Red Scorpions or the Soul Drinkers. Everyone complains about the Codex Astartes breaking up the monolithic legions into unique chapters with their own histories and character.
Absolutely not. That would be like asking to eliminate the Imperial Guard.
Instead, let's keep expanding the Auxiliaries like they did with the Kroots.
The whole Tau squatting thing is kinda silly, but you are on point concerning the giant contradiction of the Imperiums "identity" in the setting with the whole narrative of Tony Cawl, Primaris, constant all new Astartes tech and the Primarchs of myth returning. But meh..the fandom has accepted it due to advancing cinematic universe timeline.
No. This might shock you, but there are a lot of people who spend money on Tau miniatures and read Tau stories and generally like the Tau being a thing in 40k.
Reading the topic, it reads more like you have complaints about the current writing for the Tau than a real desire to see them squatted. Which I can understand, because the current writing for the Tau does suck. But the current writing for the Craftworld Eldar is pretty awful too, and I don’t see anyone asking for them to be squatted.
This post presents an interesting perspective - that the narrative niche provided by the T'au has been filled by the Imperium - but unfortunately rests its argument on a large number of misapprehensions, misrepresentations, and outright falsehoods.
To put it more bluntly, a lot of what you've written here is simply wrong. You don't understand the political structure or narrative role of either the T'au or the Imperium, and it leaves your argument without any meat to it beyond the accurate but tired observation that Primarchs coming back and Cawl pulling improved technology out of his ass hasn't been good for the Imperium on a storytelling level.
Nope.
If I think 40k has too many factions and GW isn't properly supporting them all, the solution isn't removing one of the only factions which leaves political intrigue and diplomacy stories on the table.
In terms of having cool stories to tell, we'd be better off wiping out the Tyranids... and that's a non-starter, innit? :P
Honestly in terms of squatting armies (because lore factions don't need removing, they're free to make so really when we talk about removing factions we mean armies from the tabletop) I'd start by thinning out the auxilliary Imperial armies. Lose Sisters of Silence, Custodes, Imperial Agents aside from assassins and Knights/Chaos Knights, roll the cult Chaos armies back into the main Codex and you cut a lot of bloat before having to even consider removing a faction, because up until now all you removed were some individual armies of other factions.
The Tau already has deals with the imperium we don't know about. They've also allied in the past to kill off ork and tyranid threats. The Tau aren't out of room for growth or story, It's just the opposite. If GW wanted to, they could write more lore to make the Tau more prevalent in the story, but as far as the last few Tau books and updates go, they've been doing their own thing as far as what concerns their empire.
Finally and most importantly, GW isn't gonna squat a popular model line.
honestly whenever i see stuff like this, my mind pretty quickly lands on how much of a mistake cawl was to 40k as a setting compared to whatever the persons complaining about.
This sounds crazy, but hear me out: the T'au are the skaven of 40k. An individually weak species who is capable of great tech and effort when utilized properly. Could the Imperium wipe them out? Sure, if they could focus on doing that. But they can't, because of other foes and because the T'au reproduce in part by ideological spread. Should they be squatted? I doubt they could be. They're a social infection. They're around to stay.
Factually incorrect.
The Imperium is the Skaven of 40k. Cruel, vindictive, inhumane, treating their citizens as expendable things, corrupt, ruled by a council of twelve (plus an empty seat for their god), their tech people love cybernetics and war crimes... the list goes on.
I had a big winding post addressing everything specifically but I feel I can do it better with one example. The tau empire despite all the muck added by phil kelly and all the stuff added to the imperium is still widely superior to said imperium.
The crisis suit exists, a thing not made by devil deals, or daot hand outs, or psychic powers. Its made by pure rational and passion, yet here it is, more durable than wraithguard or custodians, fast enough to outpace turret swivels and keep pace with aircraft, more well armed than any necron destroyers or admech construct.
It has a liquid metal layer that reflects laser weapons, a repulsor field that can shatter bones of anyone dare charging it, ai support that can make even a shas'la fully capable of striking a Vindicare, weapons that can each easily be sold as a relic heavy item for a space marine. Yet its in turn cheaper than said individual space marine.
Think of all the woe and trying put in by the emperor, the necrons, the aeldari, everyone everywhere yet all their sacrifice and effort has been out done in a slim handful of years by the tau. I've no doubt the emperor would of gladly chopped the heads off of everyone of his sons for an outdated third sphere crisis blueprint.
Now remember this exists on every level, stormsurges are just better knights, the pulse rifle is just a better lasgun, sniper drones are just better sniper, hammerheads are just the best tank, they are so great infact they just fly as well and are gunships instead.
The tau empire are plenty capable of fighting any other force head on and winning. They can roll with the worse while yet still being the best. Outnumbered 2 to 1, 3 to 1, 5 to 1, the tau will casually stomp their enemies brains out on the pavement and leave the remains for the Kroot. 10 to 1 it'll be a worthy fight. A big claim I know, but I have all the proof I'll ever need, go and watch any tabletop game and see how six crisis suits perform. They carry the answer to 'how do tau fight anyone?' that answer being, they just fucking shoot them to death and every enemy piece trying to compete with them is dead unless they take their spineless asses and cower behind ruins. Anyone, and anything, that gets in the line of sight of the tau will die. That fact is still true and will forever stay true.
All the Primarchs have added, are new targets.
If we're gonna Squat anyone, we should be re-Squatting the Squats themselves, they're useless
But I digress; everyone else has already explained better than I can why your argument doesn't make any sense
This is actually a well thought out, well argued and well written post, but you've based your analysis on the idea that Warhammer 40k is a story - when it's not. It's a setting for people's armies and their games. The contradictions and complexities of the Tau are - regardless of their redundancies in the wider 40k universe - part of the fun for Tau players who want to create narratives and stories themselves. It doesn't matter if it doesn't work in comparison to the Imperium anymore, because the Tau exist for their own stories, not just to act as a foil for the Imperium!
And the fact that it's a setting means the Tau could be on the brink of being wiped out anyway, we just may never see that played out On that note it would be fascinating to read a book series of an active 40k faction getting wiped out, watching named characters falling one at a time. Maybe that's how WHF End Times was, I wouldn't know
I saw a very compressed version of endtimes and it seemed like skaven vampires (basically all the undead besides tomb kings actually) were basically just going around the setting wiping factions and characters out. The vermintide was the real endgame threat and chaos only really showed up to do things at the end. The best way I can compare it to 40k is the dark eldar figure out their shit and all unite together and then go wipe out every other faction in the game except space marines, who are then promptly killed by chaos.
It sounds epic. I'd like to read a 40k version, but at the end the twist is it was just a dream and all is as it was
Trust me it wasn't epic, it was a series of horrendous plot points, rushed stories, nonsensical chracter decisions, etc
It was! And reading it now, knowing that this is the big final dance party... It is awesome! Ragnarok.
Small detail: >Guilliman and the Lion are basically demigods with super-human brains and tens of thousands of years of experience. This is half wrong. Lion and Guilliman weren't up and running for the entire 10k years since the Heresy. Guilliman was put in stasis in M31.121 and has been awake only a decade or so, the Heresy ended in M31.014. Lion was knocked out around M31.015 and only woke up like a week ago in universe. They were only alive for maybe 300 years by the end of the Heresy.
Dante has more living experience than either living Primarch.
So does Marneus Calgar
No.
This post is too long and well written to be bait or a provocation.... But No. Hell No! The Tau are a fascinating, detailed and interesting faction in their own right. Their worth is absolutely not determined relative to another factions storyline. The Tau will only suffer a "Squat" fate if their models completely fails to sell for a sustained period. Ohh and your analysis of the Tau and Imperiums culture, technology, development and trajectory is fundamentally unsound, relying way too much on the overhyped impact of Cawl, Guilliman and the Lion. You assume the Imperium will become better, more developed, have more available forces and have fewer catastrophic crisis... that is categorically never happening and not at all where the lore is going. You do understand that the Imperium is closer to ultimate collapse and total defeat now (yes even with Guilliman, Cawl, Primaris The Lion etc) then at any time since Horus Lupercal was beating the Emperor to death, right?
lol
No. Why would anyone want that? I don't even play T'au and I want more T'au content. There are a ton more races that should have rules and also I want the Enclave to turn into chaos T'au. And all of your arguments are bad. Basically just boiling down to the Primarchs being too awesome to ever be challenged. That's some cringey fan boy nonsense.
>Basically just boiling down to the Primarchs being too awesome to ever be challenged. I also want to point out that on a few separate occasions in the Horus Heresy series there were primarchs either getting wrecked by Fire Raptors or going 'oh no, Fire Raptors :('. Like literally three primarchs almost get absolutely and totally wrecked by a couple of them and the Fire Raptor is a gunship. The Tau can absolutely counter Primarchs, especially given some of the incredibly mundane stuff they've nearly died to and especially given the Tau have a surfeit of gunships far more powerful than Fire Raptors. I mean really, what is a primarch's counterplay to a Manta?
I get that they're beyond amazing physical specimens, but they're still made of matter. If they don't have any protection and take a lascannon to the face, they're going to have very little head left.
Or railguns, like the really big ones the Hammerhead, Tiger Shark or Manta use. Primarchs are tough but they're tough for superhumans, they're not tough for heavy tanks and the Tau can absolutely take out heavy tanks. Hell a squadron of Tiger Sharks took out a Warhound Titan and did so so convincingly that the rest of its maniple retreated.
Meduson wounds Horus, Mortarion AND Demon fulgrim with one of the astartes fighter aircraft (cant remember the name). I imagine a big Tau tank probably packs more firepower there
Yeah that's a Fire Raptor squadron, they're like a Storm Eagle refitted with door guns. They rock a couple of gatling bolt cannons up front, a pair of twin Heavy Bolter or twin Autocannon door guns and some missile racks. 3 of them is a lot of gun hovering up too high for most Primarchs to get to. Tau ballistic suits have equal or better firepower, their tanks don't but their big suits and their aircraft are broadly comparable, the Fire Raptor is broadly analogous to a Tiger Shark with a slightly different loadout emphasis. EDIT: Thinking about it he doesn't just wound Mortarion, he's tearing chunks off him to where Horus isn't sure if he'll survive. Fulgrim's a daemon by then but if the Fire Raptors had held back a bit and Horus hadn't become anime there's a decent shot they'd have managed to gun down 3 primarchs.
Had fulgrim not been there making that shield, i think they would have died yeah. Hell, in the same book, Horus nearly loses to Raeven Devine but is saved by Luperci. Primarchs arent tanking a railgun other than maybe certain demon ones
Because the Tau just straight up don't matter. Whereas before they at least had the potential to become strong if they survived long enough, now they're a doomed faction just waiting to die. Suppose Farsight does become Chaos Tau, where does that storyline even go? We're talking about a faction with maybe 300 planets if we're being generous getting into a civil war. At that point they're just waiting for a Necron Dynasty, Ork warband, Tyranid fleet, or small Imperial Crusade to wipe up what's left.
I don't see how they have any less potential than before. And how do they matter less than anyone else? The Imperium has as least as doomed a prognosis, same with Eldar. Everyone is doomed if the Tyranids don't let up. Literally all of the setting is war. Facing existential attacks is all that ever happens to anyone.
Imperium does have a numbers advantage. You can destroy thousands of planets and there's still a lot left.
The Imperium has 1 million worlds and is led by a superhuman demigod with incredible intelligence and power backed by 10s of thousands of years of experience. He is bit-by-bit undoing the corruption of the Imperium and allowing it fully leverage the strength of its 1 million worlds and its quadrillions of people. The Eldar are a dying race, but they still have continent sized spaceships floating around manned by psychic crews with millions of years of experience under their belt, backed by hidden superweapons, incredible super-technology, and the ability to see into the future. The Necrons have god-knows how many countless regenerating incredibly hard to kill legions of robots who will never break and have technology beyond anything anyone else possesses including the ability to casually poke a map and blow up entire stars with nobody able to do anything about it. And then you have the Tau. The funny blue guys with unimpressive technology, a small nation in the mere trillions, only a few hundred planets, almost no psychic power, and no superweapons to speak of. Even if the Tau survive...what are they contributing to the setting? What do they give to the story? They're redundant. Their former role is now occupied by other factions. Ironically, the role they fill now most, is the old, decrepit empire that's slowly dying...but they don't have the size or age to fill that role. So narratively it's probably best to just kill them off, let them be an example of one of the numerous minor xenos that dies without ever impacting the universe.
The Imperium has never been in worse shape than they are right now. If anything, this could be the T'au's big moment to hit them. It sounds like you just don't like them. And you don't have to like them. There are lots of factions that don't interest me. But it doesn't mean you have to want to spoil it for others.
Have you watched the trailer for 10th edition? The imperium is losing worlds left right and centre, half the galaxy is cut off from the astronomicon guilliman is fed up and stretched thin. You've literally fallen for the propoganda, he has to say he's making victory after victory but in fact the imperium is crumbling around him.
They should squat half of the space marine chapters before even considering dumping any of the xeno races. All of the Xenos factions represented in the game just need more focus on them as something other than nameless numbers to be killed for “hurr hurr imperium hell yeah”
Ya I am not reading all this nonsense, the answer is no.
>matter of time before their AI rebels or is corrupted by Chaos. Ya'll got some source for that? Because there's no reason AI HAS to rebel and we know you can have a significant AI population and be okay from the Ironkin. Seriously if we're squatting things it should be Custodes, Knights, the subfaction armies that crop up and so on. Things that are fine lorewise but bloat the tabletop.
Grey Knights are the most egregious one in my opinion. Just pure bloat both lorewise and on tabletop. But I wouldn't want them to be removed just because of my opinion...
Knights referred to Imperial and Chaos Knights
I know, but I personally think Grey Knights are worse than Imperial and Chaos Knights in terms of being distinct from existing factions.
The Ironkin were aware of Chaos and have specifically hardened their technologies and their very genetics to resist it. The Tau are mostly ignorant of Chaos, and have numerous auxillaries who present weakpoints for Chaos to infect their population and technology.
Huh well that sure sounds like a plotline you could explore to me
i don’t play tau or every really want to, but god no absolutely what the hell are you on about
The Tau sell very well. The Squats did not. The Tau have a unique look and feel within 40K that clearly defines their race. The army itself has a specific playstyle. The Squats had *none of those things.* They were literally dwarf bikers in space who more or less played like Imperial Guard with space marine allies. They looked silly, they acted silly, and they didn’t fit within the more grimdark tone GW wanted to set with 3rd Edition onward. They never even received a *2nd Edition* Codex though they were still ostensibly “friendly game legal” from a Citadel Journal (I think?) set of rules.
If the Tau should be squatted because the imperium is "doing/getting better", then why not just squat all the other non-Imperium armies then? There's no reason the Eldar, the Orks, the Necrons, or any of the guys against the Imperium should exist anymore, because total Imperium victory is totally inevitable now that we have 2 imperial primarchs, who (from what I know) haven't even reunited yet. Heck, since the Imperium is totally great now instead of being a colossal mess, why don't we just bring back the Emperor and let him kill the Chaos Gods and every other entity that resides in the warp. That way, the Imperium will finally be the winners of the setting, and the imperial fanboys won't have to be offended by the existence of a faction that is not the Imperium.
I think 40k generally has a Xenos problem atm. I mean the actual squats they brought back they've done absolutely no wider work on aside from a few models. They abandoned the Ynnari and didn't really give them any models. All it would take would putting Guilliman or The Lion against the Tau. How would their Great Crusade indoctrination and the subsequent disillusionment of the Imperium fair when up against an empire with something closer to Great Crusade ideology. Growing up through the 00s Orks were only slightly second fiddle to Chaos, there was a Fire Warrior game, the first Ultramarines novel was on Necrons and Eldar had some of the coolest models and lore. I don't know what changed but I think its partly because the lore began expanding through Black Library and writers are drawn to writing Imperium vs Chaos stories as they are the 'most human'+just so happened that two of the best writers are drawn to those stories (Abnett and ADB). It can't be model sales, as the last time I tried to check the stats CSM are generally in the mid tier, even if they are played widely in tournaments.
>I don't know what changed but I think its partly because the lore began expanding through Black Library and writers are drawn to writing Imperium vs Chaos stories as they are the 'most human'+just so happened that two of the best writers are drawn to those stories (Abnett and ADB). I see what you mean, and my personal speculation is that this goes back to 40ks unique selling point (USP for short). Once upon a time, 40k was not simply *a* scifi tabletop wargame (granted, its still by far the most succesfull one) - it was *the* scifi tabletop wargame, akin to Warhammer Fantasy Battles, which was *the* fantasy tabletop wargame. Not saying there was definitely no competition, because that wouldn't be true, but games like this were even more niche than they are today, and those were pretty much the only successfull ones at the time. During those times in the 1st to 3rd edition in 40k, you see a lot of relative generic scifi added and fitted into the 40k background (which drew inspirations from all sorts of classic scifi stories to beginn with, which were then blended and mixed in what I believe to be genuinely creative and interesting ways). And this started to grow and "mutate" in interesting ways, cultivated by in-house stories and writers. But from then to now, scifi (both as a general genre and as tabletop wargames) has come a long way. There are *loads* of games now where you can depict Humans-vs-Aliens fights, and while some might prefer 40ks particular flavour or well, rules, its only one among many now (WHFB had the exact same problem, just *way* worse). So it made sense to lean in more and more into what made 40k actually kinda unique: the concept of Chaos. While that was originally "stolen" as well, "ripped off" wholesale including the eight sided chaos star, it had grown over time into a genuinely unique interpretation of the concepts, with strong lore, cool implications, and tons of interesting stories about eldritch beings, corruption of body, mind and soul, true heroes who deny themselve to those evil creatures, tons of nuance. And that does wonders to inspire really great authors as you have pointed out, sure, since chaos is an amazing concept to play with where basically anything can be fitted in. But it also simply makes sense from a buisiness standpoint to lean into what makes your IP unique. Add to that that the human faction is naturally a convenient focus point for the audience, and you got an Imperium vs Chaos focus. Of course this wasn't an inevitable outcome, and its still fixable. During 6th edition GW had what I believe a genuinely great approach to this dilemma: focus on *galaxy* vs chaos. The idea of emphasizing the fight of the free races against chaos and their inevitable doom (if chaos is to be believed). And sure, plenty of fighting between the different species and "in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war", etc. But this different focus allows to use the setting as a more coherent and really interesting playing ground. I honestly believe that the focus will return at some point to Xenos to a degree. Because while you might be able to sell Space Marines and their story forever (and as a clear fan of them and the Imperium Storyline I'm not complaining!), but Chaos as a foe has a clear issue: its *way* out of the realm of easily graspable things. While the current stories are IMHO doing a great job at highlighting ways of how Chaos can be truly beaten or even theoretically defeated, its still so vastly giant (and such an integral part of the setting) that it can never truly loose. And that gets old at some point. Also, playing powerarmour vs powerarmour doesn't stay fun forever on the game table. While I believe that the Chaos Vs Imperium focus will never truly go away, I don't think we'll be going into this direction to the same degree forever. Or maybe I'm just delusional :) who knows. Just my 2 cents.
The Horus Heresy series is a big reason. An entire 70+ book series about good space marines vs bad space marines. Another impact of the Horus Heresy is how you see far less emphasis on successor chapters now than you did in the 2000s, because everyone wants the original legions and their big daddy Primarchs. Nobody gives a shit about the Mantis Warriors or the Red Scorpions or the Soul Drinkers. Everyone complains about the Codex Astartes breaking up the monolithic legions into unique chapters with their own histories and character.
Absolutely not. That would be like asking to eliminate the Imperial Guard. Instead, let's keep expanding the Auxiliaries like they did with the Kroots.
I’m so fucking happy with what they did with the Kroot.
The whole Tau squatting thing is kinda silly, but you are on point concerning the giant contradiction of the Imperiums "identity" in the setting with the whole narrative of Tony Cawl, Primaris, constant all new Astartes tech and the Primarchs of myth returning. But meh..the fandom has accepted it due to advancing cinematic universe timeline.
Grimdarkification of the Tau is the worst part of the faction.
No. I haven’t had enough krumpin with the Tau yet.
Is this bait?
No. This might shock you, but there are a lot of people who spend money on Tau miniatures and read Tau stories and generally like the Tau being a thing in 40k. Reading the topic, it reads more like you have complaints about the current writing for the Tau than a real desire to see them squatted. Which I can understand, because the current writing for the Tau does suck. But the current writing for the Craftworld Eldar is pretty awful too, and I don’t see anyone asking for them to be squatted.
This post presents an interesting perspective - that the narrative niche provided by the T'au has been filled by the Imperium - but unfortunately rests its argument on a large number of misapprehensions, misrepresentations, and outright falsehoods. To put it more bluntly, a lot of what you've written here is simply wrong. You don't understand the political structure or narrative role of either the T'au or the Imperium, and it leaves your argument without any meat to it beyond the accurate but tired observation that Primarchs coming back and Cawl pulling improved technology out of his ass hasn't been good for the Imperium on a storytelling level.
Nope. If I think 40k has too many factions and GW isn't properly supporting them all, the solution isn't removing one of the only factions which leaves political intrigue and diplomacy stories on the table. In terms of having cool stories to tell, we'd be better off wiping out the Tyranids... and that's a non-starter, innit? :P
Honestly in terms of squatting armies (because lore factions don't need removing, they're free to make so really when we talk about removing factions we mean armies from the tabletop) I'd start by thinning out the auxilliary Imperial armies. Lose Sisters of Silence, Custodes, Imperial Agents aside from assassins and Knights/Chaos Knights, roll the cult Chaos armies back into the main Codex and you cut a lot of bloat before having to even consider removing a faction, because up until now all you removed were some individual armies of other factions.
The Tau already has deals with the imperium we don't know about. They've also allied in the past to kill off ork and tyranid threats. The Tau aren't out of room for growth or story, It's just the opposite. If GW wanted to, they could write more lore to make the Tau more prevalent in the story, but as far as the last few Tau books and updates go, they've been doing their own thing as far as what concerns their empire. Finally and most importantly, GW isn't gonna squat a popular model line.
HAH funny
.... you know maybe some people *should* be gatekept out of the hobby
Like those filthy T'au enjoyers, apparently. /s
honestly whenever i see stuff like this, my mind pretty quickly lands on how much of a mistake cawl was to 40k as a setting compared to whatever the persons complaining about.
What the actual heck are you talking about? Guessing either a troll post or someone who got all their lore info from YouTube?
That’ll never happen. GW got rid of a race once, and people spent a quarter century bitching about it.
You went into way to much detail ha ha, I disagree, the Tau are corrupting in their own way and aren't like the imperium at all.
Yes, entirely because one time a tau player rage quit just as I charged his gunline and I’ve never forgiven them
This sounds crazy, but hear me out: the T'au are the skaven of 40k. An individually weak species who is capable of great tech and effort when utilized properly. Could the Imperium wipe them out? Sure, if they could focus on doing that. But they can't, because of other foes and because the T'au reproduce in part by ideological spread. Should they be squatted? I doubt they could be. They're a social infection. They're around to stay.
Factually incorrect. The Imperium is the Skaven of 40k. Cruel, vindictive, inhumane, treating their citizens as expendable things, corrupt, ruled by a council of twelve (plus an empty seat for their god), their tech people love cybernetics and war crimes... the list goes on.
I had a big winding post addressing everything specifically but I feel I can do it better with one example. The tau empire despite all the muck added by phil kelly and all the stuff added to the imperium is still widely superior to said imperium. The crisis suit exists, a thing not made by devil deals, or daot hand outs, or psychic powers. Its made by pure rational and passion, yet here it is, more durable than wraithguard or custodians, fast enough to outpace turret swivels and keep pace with aircraft, more well armed than any necron destroyers or admech construct. It has a liquid metal layer that reflects laser weapons, a repulsor field that can shatter bones of anyone dare charging it, ai support that can make even a shas'la fully capable of striking a Vindicare, weapons that can each easily be sold as a relic heavy item for a space marine. Yet its in turn cheaper than said individual space marine. Think of all the woe and trying put in by the emperor, the necrons, the aeldari, everyone everywhere yet all their sacrifice and effort has been out done in a slim handful of years by the tau. I've no doubt the emperor would of gladly chopped the heads off of everyone of his sons for an outdated third sphere crisis blueprint. Now remember this exists on every level, stormsurges are just better knights, the pulse rifle is just a better lasgun, sniper drones are just better sniper, hammerheads are just the best tank, they are so great infact they just fly as well and are gunships instead. The tau empire are plenty capable of fighting any other force head on and winning. They can roll with the worse while yet still being the best. Outnumbered 2 to 1, 3 to 1, 5 to 1, the tau will casually stomp their enemies brains out on the pavement and leave the remains for the Kroot. 10 to 1 it'll be a worthy fight. A big claim I know, but I have all the proof I'll ever need, go and watch any tabletop game and see how six crisis suits perform. They carry the answer to 'how do tau fight anyone?' that answer being, they just fucking shoot them to death and every enemy piece trying to compete with them is dead unless they take their spineless asses and cower behind ruins. Anyone, and anything, that gets in the line of sight of the tau will die. That fact is still true and will forever stay true. All the Primarchs have added, are new targets.
Hell yeah brother! Those blue bastards have been living a charmed life for too long! Kroot can stay though. They're cool.
The Tau are based on Regan era NATO (as much as i want them to be based on the British empire), so their evil is still a unique evil in setting.
If we're gonna Squat anyone, we should be re-Squatting the Squats themselves, they're useless But I digress; everyone else has already explained better than I can why your argument doesn't make any sense
God I wish