Is there a way to field Tau without being perceived as an asshole?
First time collector and I love the Tau aesthetic and fluff; for aliens, I find them a lot more relatable than, say, EMPRAHS FUREH and the like. And I love mechs. But it seems like if I were to get into playing, Tau would largely confer an unfair advantage.
There a way to play these guys that isn't just point-and-shoot?
Farsight Enclave
Don't spam Broadsides or do the unkillable commander tactic or far sight bomb. And for gods sake don't field 31 fuckin mechs. With the Farsight Enclaves/Tau Empire battle brothers rule with taking all forms of suit will end up with around 31 to what I remember.
If you find them more relatable, you have not read their current fluff. Unless you solve all your problems by just being better or spot inventing hard counters, you should look else where. Guant's ghost first books are hailed as relatable.
I guess by that I mean that your average Tau soldier seems like a person caught up in politicized warfare and not an engineered killing machine. Granted I'm pretty new to the universe and have a fairly limited view of the fluff.
also the fact that the tau are one of the like 3 races who are entirely ok with leaving somone alone. They are ruthless as fuck but don't consider exterminating every other species to be a holy duty.
that part of there mindset can be fairly relatable, they are not motivated be seething religious hatred, they are motivated by a desire to survive and thrive in a hostile universe.
>they are motivated by a desire to survive and thrive in a hostile universe.
So is almost everyone else. They just have different means available to them and different beliefs influencing their decision making.
Don't spam Riptides and Ghostkeels. Regular battlesuits are pretty good without being OP, and lend themselves better to a more mobile gameplay than just sitting at the back of the board and shooting (try not to abuse the "shoot, then jump behind los-blocking terrain" tactic too much, though). Or try using a mechanised Firewarrior-heavy list. Pretty much nobody does that.
Kroot.
>I find them a lot more relatable than, say, EMPRAHS FUREH
Have you tried literally any other sci-fi setting? Sounds like that'd be a much better fit for you.
this
The rules don't help, but a lot of what makes Tau irritating in 40k to veterans is how poorly they are written into the universe. 40k is a setting in which there really are no good guys - everyone is fighting for survival, and has long ago given up on being 'good' in exchange for just not dying.
Enter Tau, a noblebright race that's all for peace and harmony, with an empire devoid of crippling problems and a wonderful future ahead of them, noble leaders and just plain likable dudes as soldiers. Its an eyesore in a universe unique for daring to NOT have those things. It's like a slice of Star Trek dropped into the dystopian nightmare of a galaxy where hell bleeds into realspace.
There are seeds in the Tau lore that could, if expanded make them fit better - that the great society of theirs is a lie, that the ethereals are using mind control to brainwash the others, that they cover up genocide of undesirables - stuff that puts them more like a North Korea's propaganda village with windows painted on the walls on their fake houses. But GW's writers haven't really emphasized this, and it makes the race as a whole just annoying.
This is what I find so strange about myself. I love grimdark shit unironically, and yet I find myself most drawn to the groups in 40k that seem most outside of it.
Imperial Guard is also quite compelling to me. A bunch of unfortunate regular guys with a lot of guns against the nastiest shit in the galaxy.
Is the R'varna worth it if you already have a normal Riptide and Y'vahra?
The IG are conscripted by the Imperium through a planetary tax into a fighting force run by the most inefficient and unfeeling bureaucracy the galaxy has ever known. They are herded into ships, given rudimentary training by stern, remorseless commissars, practically whipped to the front lines, told to say their prayers, and climb over the bodies of their fallen to take a battlefield. Then, if they are not annihilated by the daemonic warpspawn, hulking warbeats, sinister xenos, or whathaveyou, they are probably going to sit on this hellhole for decades before the Imperium even remembers to pick them back up. Effectively, their lives are over. Ig fit very well in the 40k setting, because when the common man fights on its battlefields, he gets fucked one way or the other.
IG is super grimdark.
Dont field:
Riptide Wing
JSJ'ing Crisis troops
Stormsurge
Optimized Stealth Cadre
Hunter Contingent
Just run a CAD. Limit yourself when it comes to the bullshit. Some people can, others just rationalize/justify why the NEED to field "X" unit(s).
If you cant genuinely put yourself in your opponents shoes, you arent mature enough to play Tau.
>with an empire devoid of crippling problems and a wonderful future ahead of them
Except for the fact that the Tau empire is too small to survive in the long term. The only reason they survived as long as they have is that the Imperium views the nids as the more urgent threat.
Having each of your soldiers worth 100 enemy soldiers has you losing when the enemy sends 200 for every one of yours.
>muh veteran opinion
>muh grimdark
I was playing 2nd ed back in the early 90s. The Tau didn't 'ruin' 40k's pristine grimdark any more that the Eldar already did. Eldar are beautiful, elegant space elves in an otherwise mostly grimdark universe. Eldar hope to kill the Chaos gods and restore beauty and order to the galaxy. Eldar might kill humans and do some ruthless shit, but so do Tau. Tau are hegemonistic expansionists who manipulate and then strongarm other races. The Tau don't have problems, you say? They're a tiny empire with shit warp travel who are surrounded by immense alien forces that threaten to wipe them out. That's a pretty big problem for them.
Don't even get me started on the comical Orks. If you want something that deflates grimdark, Orks have been doing that since Rogue Trader.
40k has always been a clusterfuck of jarringly different themes and styles. To say that any one thing can break that, whether it's the Tau or not, is absurd.
See, this makes me want to field IG more, partially because they are both A) grimdark as fuck and B) that is contrasted by me conceiving of IG soldiers having moments like those in the pic I posted above.
One of the things that makes groups like the Adeptus less appealing to me is that they seem to eat shit like world-consuming monsters for breakfast; they live in that element. It's the guardsmen that experience the insanity of 40K for what it truly is.
The Tau lore harps endlessly about their expansion and technological superiority. They may be small, but the fact that they "can't survive" never comes up, because GW is too busy Sue-ing them into the heralds of hope, justice, and prosperity. They beat the Cadian battlegroup sent to reclaim the Imperial territory they captured. They beat nids by "out maneuvering" and "out-adapting" them. They beat the Vostroyans. It gets old.
>Dont field:
>Riptide Wing
>JSJ'ing Crisis troops
>Stormsurge
>Optimized Stealth Cadre
>Hunter Contingent
Just cuck yourself the post famallama
Fuck the normies op, field all this shit and have fun. It's not your fault cheap ass players can't afford Grav Units to deal with you.
You make some valid points, but I would counter that both Eldar and even Orks have been tooled over the years to fit more neatly into 40k's tone.
Yes, Eldar are noble, graceful elves. Who also give ot one shit about the welfare of other races, and in fact ally with Dark Eldar BDSM pirates over humans. They worship gods like the Laughing God and Khaine the Bloody-Handed. They are dying out. Slaneesh eats them when they die.
Likewise, Orks remain comical but also still fit nicely. They are a bioengineered weapon that feeds on violence. They swarm over civilizations butchering everything in their path. Once they set foot on a planet, their spores ensure they are never completely eradicated from it.
I don't disagree with you their are not shades across the spectrum here, but Tau in particular are just so fucking devoid of any form of darkness to them they are just dumb in this universe.
I know.
A good civilisation that has no chance of surviving could fit with 40k.
Or there is the fan theory I've seen that the Laughing God was heavily involved with the Tau. That gives them the potential to survive as a species, but it would change them. So it could be interesting if GW runs with that.
But GW doesn't go with either of those. They go with the Tau being the high tech race that keeps winning somehow. Despite their being ancient races (Eldar, Necrons) that would be far more technologically advanced.
Have they won against Necrons yet ?
>every IG regiment ever is a penal regiment under somebody like Chenkov
>exceptions exist, therefore I reject your entire statement
IG are fucking faggots. Their fans are even worse than Marinetards
Give me 3 Guard Regiments that work like you described. Preferably non penal regiments.
>Tau in particular are just so fucking devoid of any form of darkness to them they are just dumb in this universe.
If you put the Tau in practically any other setting, they'd at best come across as well-intentioned extrimists, more likely as outright villains. They seem nive by 40k standars because they give you a choise of joining them before they forcefully annex your planet, rather than just raping/killing/eating (or in case of Dark Dldar, all three) you, but in the end they still hold a gun to your head and ask you to join them or die. There's also plenty of examples of the Tau doing some pretty shady stuff. Sending the goverment leaders of planets they annex to be "re-educated" (read:brainwashed), "disappearring" dissidents (including other Tau; Commander Farsight is an unperson, anybody who mentions him is an enemy of the state), having populations of annexed planets split up and shipped to various different Tau-dominated planets (ostensively to protect them in case the Imperium tries retaking the world, but in practice more likely to prevent possibility of rebellion). Plus the Ethereals' view of the Greater Good is pretty much identical to what the Emperor thought: no action, no matter how vile it might seem, can be evil if it is done to ensure survival of humanity (or Tau...anity, in this case).
Since there's an SMAC thread up, I think comparing the philosophy of the Ethereals to that of Shang-Jin Yang is not out of place. And Yang is many thing but not a nice man.
explain without cherry picking one asshole that you have met
>Don't do what Tau are supposed to do
This shit reads like an SJW crying about how white males acting normally in society microagressions and triggers and all that bullshit. I get it many Tau players are fucking no-life neckbeard weeaboos who's only accomplishment in life is beating someone else in a game of army-men.
Farsights a cool dude
Ethereals are the real bad guys
Imperial Guard is very similar
No WIP thread? How sad!
Sorry for no links edition.
Any suggestions on what color I should use to highlight my Word Bearer's armor? I'm using Khorne Red as a base.
Spess muhreens are the minority of soldiers in the imperial forces.
What you're looking for are the Imperial Guard. They have nothing going for them except numbers and guts. All of them are regular men, probably conscripted, who are totally unprepared for the terrible things that are about to happen to them. But they will hold the line.
Thank goodness for those Eldar jetbike, Wolfstar, etc., etc. armies nowadays.
Tau? Ok. grandpa.
Fear not, will will almost never be the biggest asshole in the room.
>implying every army has Grav
There are armies that just dont have a legit way to deal with Tau suits and formations.
Not him but Valhallans, Death corps of krieg and mordians. Let's be real, aside for the novels that need to have relatable characters and plausible events the lore in general is pretty adamant that the guard prefer to use WW1 tactics at best and the most advanced and reasonable ones may have upgraded to WW2 tactics if they're lucky.
There is a formation in the Tau codex that lets you have nothing but battlesuits that can arrive from reserve automatically turn 2 and with bs 4 + relentless or some shit. Don't use this, it's a dick move. A player at my shop does this with an entire 1,500 pt army of suits with just enough markerlight drone support to ruin your day and jump back out of LoS to make everything just be unfun to play against.
HAHAHAHAHA
Warhammer 40k: We'd rather not have you than have you like Tau
Oh god shut the fuck up
This is why everyone hates the tau fanbase
Maybe he wants to play a scifi wargame.
I haven't seen too many alternatives to 40k floating around for that.
It's your only real option whether you like the fluff or not.
For instance, I've got next to 0 interest in the setting. Either i build an out of setting (using the closest list to represent something from a different setting) or use an unofficial list army (like 40k skaven or something), or i play tyranids because i don't actively hate them.
What other scifi skirmish war game can i play, and where would i find other players for it?
>Since there's an SMAC thread up, I think comparing the philosophy of the Ethereals to that of Shang-Jin Yang is not out of place
this
And the tau are simply the most tolerable of a bunch of shitty factions.
I could tolerate playing them, if i wanted to do something other than ignore the setting entirely and just play as space bugs killing soldiers, or using a book list to sub in for the closest mechanical fit for something from another setting.
>Or try using a mechanised Firewarrior-heavy list. Pretty much nobody does that.
That's how I play them
>engineered killing machine
Nigga the tau's castes are harshly enforced and eugenics has been in full effect since the ethereals took the mantle, the Fire Caste is literally a biologically engineered killing machine.
Go guard.
Valhallans and Mordians are not conscripted.
Mordians and Kriegers are known for their exceptional training, Valhallans are decent with theirs.
Kriegers sometimes use trench warfare and infantry rushes, otherwise nothing of their tactics is "WW I". All use combined arms and utilize their strenghts to their advantage.
>most Guard is WW1 in spehs
That's complete bullshit.
Shit, even your BL argument is bullshit.90% of Guard books have them severly crippled by corrupt high command, fucked up weather, Chaos fuckery, bad luck or any other contrived bullshit excuse why they can't just flatten the place with artilery, tanks or aircraft. Because nobody wants to read a book where the Guard just steamrolls everything.
lol
nearly all 40k races are pretty goddamn non-negotiable murderhobos
eldar, newcrons (sometimes), tau and what else are the exceptions?
Marines and Eldar are probably the most played factions and they're just as powerful a Tau so don't stress. Half the games you play in won't give you that much of an advantage as long as you don't lean on the hunter contingent or whatever it's called.
The issue with Tau is that their whole army is denial. If an army shoots them, stabs them, Psykers them, sneezes at them, they die. So in order to succeed the Tau must kill, and ultimately table, their opponents.
This may just sound like stupid Tau hate, but it's crucial to playing a fun Tau list. You must not just incinerate your opponent before he can use anything and then wonder why he's upset. I'm not saying let them win, but let them use the stuff they bring, and then play as a good sport and do the best you can.
And for the love of god don't spam riptides
Why is that Tau on the right eating a burrito and what appears to be a mexicano coke?
Quoted from one of my many Imperial Guard Codexes: "The Imperial Guard grinds it's foes to nothing in gruelling wars of attrition, many commanders expending the lives of their men for the most trivial of tactical and strategic gains." I can go on but it's made clear again and again in so much source material that the Guard are not about combined arms in the way you mean it (which is actually a WW2 era tactic) but basically WW1 style warfare. Hell even the tanks are slow, lumbering vehicles with the track design famous from WW1 tanks that were meant for driving over trenches. They are not mobile forces meant for breakthroughs, but heavy infantry tanks meant to move along with a massed infantry assault.
As for being conscripted yes they might not all be conscripted in the one sense, but then again a levy isn't a conscript either but he doesn't really have a choice in the matter either way. The fact is that planets have tithes, which means they can and often do press soldiers into service to meet them. And for training that has nothing to do with anything. There is no necessary correlation between conscripted, drafted or levied service and poor training. Canadians in WW1 were famous for their training and they had conscription, the US in WW2 had a draft, same with in Vietnam. Cadians have mandatory service and are also among the very best trained in universe. Even some Space Marine chapters use what amounts to press gangs.
Long story short the Guard in no way as an organization use modern day tactical or operational movements. Maybe a few regiments do (Armageddon Steel Legion come to mind), and a few use their strengths in one particular type of warfare (Tallarns and Catachans) but most are exactly as described. They draft their troops by the millions to meet a tithe, they are sent into combat with massed infantry tank support and artillery barrages and use their manpower to wear down the opponent (read war of attrition).
Yes, just use some common sense and try not taking 3 Riptides.
He's bulking.
Tau are neckbeards, IG are faggots, marines are tards. Whats left for you to enjoy?
That's just your inner 4channer; we love to focus on the one part of the fluff that goes against the overall grain.
40k? Tau or brave heroic Guardsmen!
Dark Souls? Solaire!
Pokemon? The world is post-apoc and everything's actually shit.
Basically, the happier everything is, the more we look for one bit of fluff that implies horrible things happening offscreen, and the worse everything is, the harder we latch on to the one bright spot.
That's one of the problems of 40k, making bland and generalizing statements that are never supported by the actual fluff.
Again, give me 3 Regiments that are exactly as describes. Because I can't think of a single one that meets all those standards, except for maybe a throwaway mention of a Penal Regiment.