Screw that faction!

i agree with you. i started this series through the books and found out about the armies through the Veeky Forums wiki (which i found when i looked up Matt Ward and clicked on the first site that came up thinking it was the regular wiki) and the regular WH40k wiki pages as well as talking to player of the tabletop and realized that instead of a swarm of glass cannons that are cheap and squishy units that rely on the fact that you field several times as many of them on the field then the other players could possibly field with a little support from the bigger guys.... we get a handful of tanky units and weird gameplay gimmicks... really an odd design choice in my opinion.

My experience with 40k in a nutshell.
Except I eventually switched to Orks greentide to get my swarm fix, until that became garbage too.

I mran I'm not against playing nids as kaiju army but, swarms should be just as valid

Yeah, the chaos focus turns all the aliens and intrigue and ancient beings into a b-plot to dudes vs spiky dudes

i agree. i have nothing against it from watching someone play but i would like to see someone be able to play with a swarm like style. really all they have to do is create another style of play for the Tyranids. so you can choose to play as the tanky type or the swarmin type. i'm not knowledgeable enough of the faction though to suggest anything beyond that.

Chaos really is a cool faction and all but i feel it is suffering from over use and in some cases... to much success in the fluff. it seems that every time a bad thing happens it was because one of the Chaos Gods got up in there and screwed some stuff up. why can't there be more gods or god like beings for some of the other factions that screw with them? like it is frequently implied the Emperor does try to counter them at times but why does it seem like he is the only other being who can do that?

Because GW is reducing the Plat to dudes vs spiky dudes, look at how hard they are pushing HH in the last few years, pure humans vs chaos, minimal alien involvement

Tau, but only particularly in 7E.

In their first incarnation they were relatively advanced (but more due to a higher technological floor, their technological ceiling was somewhat mid-tier for 40k honestly), had their own weaknesses and strengths, they had a place in the narrative and stuck to it excellently. They also had their limits, initially the Air Caste, while possessing better aircraft on average, were still struggling against the Imperial Navy proper.

There were always a few moments that made you raise an eyebrow but every faction had those.

Then in the middle editions between their first and now we started seeing slight decline in their character, from Space Marine-tier "this one piece of technology or one dude killed and entire Terminator Squad alone 'cause we need to show off the unit," to the Patient Hunter, in which the Riptide is proven massively manoeuvrable with weapons well above anything we'd seen from Tau before in addition to being durable well beyond any rights it had, it wasn't a singular unit with a role (which is what exemplified the Tau as a faction for me) it was just a "check out this new unit that's best at everything ever."

Those were warning signs for what was to come in late 6th and 7th primarily. Now some of the losses the Tau have suffered have either been retconned into victories, just as planned moments or simply not as terrible a loss. Some of their weaknesses have been completely removed or even reversed, such as the lack of Air Caste experience (due to wholly logical reasons such as short lifespans and slow FTL ensuring they see combat less than most aces) being completely flipped into an incredible amount of experience for... No reason.

Their slow FTL isn't even addressed anymore, Shadowsun was apparently everywhere during the newer Crusades and the Tau are constantly getting out-of-system reinforcements, actively ignoring the critical weaknesses in their fleets for, once again, no reason.

Cont.

Their combat style is an interesting one, with a lack of ground holding ability in favour of army mobility. Except the new Stormsurges and Supremacy Suits not only actively go against this, but are hyped to the point where their inclusion alone has made Tau defence nothing short of incredible (that's not even to mention the shields the Tau are getting, surely everyone has noticed a drastic improvement in the power of Tau shields of all scales in recent fluff, effectively allowing the writers to bypass any sort of tactics or stopping a character from dying because "lel shields that are amazing and can block everything.")

That's not even to say how some newer fluff has put up Tau against the heavier hitters, such as Necrons and Eldar, and had them pull off victories much in the same way as against the Imperium. So are we supposed to accept that standard Tau forces are now amongst the elite of the elite, trading blows and beating back the Astartes, Necrons and Eldar? Essentially making them no longer a combined arms, naive but hopeful force, and rather a "get off my lawn, grandpa, you're just a bunch of deluded, senile old men an Tau technological superiority, tactical superiority and clear philosophical superiority will see us go up against anyone and win."

There's a clear distinction between early editions Tau and modern editions Tau, most of it taking away what made them unique, what they had to add to the narrative and shitting all over other factions to show off new retcons that some writer or other decided they'd give to the Tau just because.

They wanted to sell bigger and more expensive Tau toys, that's literally it

Pretty much. Doesn't change how much it's killed their lore for me, though.

They are worse then Hasbro introducing a new transformer gimmick, how could they save the tau?

agreed

>I have followed the myriad potential futures of the Tau with great interest. Though barely even striplings compared to us, I feel a strange protectiveness towards them. In time I believe they will exceed even our greatest feats and master the darkness within their souls.

-Eldrad Ulthran, Farseer of Ulthwé Craftworld

>‘The Tau are young, yet their fire burns hot enough to reduce the stone hearts of ancient empires to ash. To underestimate them is to invite the cold grasp of death.’

- Irolac Dawnslayer of Craftworld Ulthwé

The point of the Tau that they are rising power in the galaxy that if not stopped will ellipse the crumbling dying empires around it. Necrons. Eldar, and Imperim have taken notice of the Tau ascension. The Imperials responded with aggression and fear, the Eldar with hope and appreciation, and the Necrons with wonderment over what hertitage that spawned such a race.

The naive and innocent angle was meant for the Tau at the period of the First and Second Spheres. In Third Shperes the Tau faced the dangers of the galaxy and were bloodied. Losing a great measure of their nativity and innocence. Despite all of this, they are not afraid. They welcome the coming changes assured that as long as they believe in single truth of the universe (The Greater Good), the Tau race will eventually triumph.

How can you not like this underdog attitude? Seriously, you guys have no heart.

It feels like a divorce from what made them unique

>The underdog might win

Is a far better attitude than.

>This race of "underdogs" has proven superior, or close to superior, to all others already and is actively advancing like a madman

It doesn't feel like they're the underdog if they just shit all over everyone

im with this anonymous guy. the first is a far better attitude.

Yeah, the turn around is too soon and too far

Wouldn't remove any, but tau just don't interest in me the slightest, imperium, elder, dark elder, orks, necrons, nids, chaos all interest me... tau are just meh

Shit on everyone? Lets take the latest Necron vs Tau lore battle From Stormcloud attack.

Sure, the Tau aces were outskilling Necron pilots and earning tons of kills but the Tau were outnumbered many times over. It was made worse by the fact that the Necron craft the Tau shot down, phased out and then returned to the field. The Tau were fighting an uphill battle.

And it got double worse by the fact that the Necron Overlord unleashed a super weapon to break the stalemate in the skies which scattered the Tau formations and allowed the Trio Necron aces to do a suicide run at the Tau water harvesting platform which ended in them sending it sinking into the ocean.

The war goes on but the Tau got dealt a big blow and the advantage shifted towards the Necrons.

>implying that wasn't the smartest choice

I hate Tau, I really do. I hate markerlights, I hate their suits, and I hate the majority of their players. I hate their markerlights are stupid easy to optimize and keep alive vs armies with no Ignores Cover. I hate that their suits are so retardedly good, it's why a lot of people start playing them and can accidently ruin friendly meta by taking an aesthetically cool choice. I hate that both Tau players I've met have immdiately browsed online to find their power units and combos to field them. I hate their author fap

I simply hate the faction

I have a huge tyranid army, love the swarm theme, have 120 termas, 60 hormas, and a few big gribblies, it just sucks that the swarm itself is so shit, but its fun watching my opponents face when I outnumber him like 5-1

They are not an underdog anymore. They are without a doubt the equal of every force they fight.

The only "problem" they have is that any race, if they cared, could overwhelm them, but they never do "because reasons".

Tau are stupidly strong these days and their robots and anything if not better then the other factions... despite the other factions, Eldar and Necrons ESPECIALLY, having millennia on them.

Its fucking stupid as shit and it lies in complete contrast to everything about the setting.

>Tau
>Known for being shit in cc, slow, weak

>Tyranids
>Known in lore to be monsters in CC, fast, aggressive, multiple limbs

>Swarmlord, the biggest baddest tyranid with 4 instant death weird alien psychic crystal swords gets beaten by farsight

Ok

>Sure, the Tau aces were outskilling Necron pilots and earning tons of kills but the Tau were outnumbered many times over.

It's not loss or win that matters entirely, it's the fact that the writer just HAD to make sure we all knew how superior the Tau Air Caste are, it's like when Space Marines get killed by Orkz, it's a traditional "superior force gets ganked by hordes of plebs," deal.

All this, especially with the mentions of Tau technology being a major factor in that fight, against some of the heaviest hitters in the galaxy with the most advanced tech.

I'd much rather the Ancient & the Greater Good was about how the Tau had to use cunning and skill to try and reduce the damage caused by a superior foe to the best of their abilities. You know, the same treatment almost everyone gets against the Necrons.

im just waiting until someone throws in that their advanced tech comes from reverse engineered human tech that they found and altered as well as upgraded to suit them.

Right? They should have emphasized Tauu adaptability and non-robotic thinking, compared to the necron pilot. An uphill battle, being chased by a pilot with thousands of years of experience and superior tech, with the Tau pilots having to rely on better teamwork and non-standard fighting methods; only to have the Necron pilots come back, would be Grimdark and fun to read

The Tau
The Inquisition (all of them)
I want to hate Knights but it's not in me.

You see, this is the kinda shit I would love to see from the Tau. Something that their old lore could've very easily been used for.

It only adds a great deal as to why I hate modern Tau, not because they've slowly become bland as fuck bordering-on-sues that actively go against their own place in the narrative, but also because the writers could have done so much good with Tau.

You missing the point. I think the whole thing is meant to show who far Tau AI has advanced. To hint that Tau AI might heading towards Iron Men

>Kassen and Noble Flame

>The Noble Flame is an exceptional combat craft, blessed with one of the most advanced AI suites in the Tau Empire. Always inclined to trust his own instincts rather than the programming of his AI, however, Kassen has somewhat of a strained relationship with the craft's artificial sentience. Even though he regularly overrides the targeting protocols or frostily ignoring its strategic advice, Noble Flame's AI still works tirelessly to keep its master alive, something that paid dividends during the terrifying war on Blackfathom. When they do work in harmony, Karrsen and Noble Flame are an unstoppable pairing that the Scythes of Hamanekh have been unable to defeat in aerial combat. Of course, Kassen hasn't face all three at once.

Except even the Dark Age of Technology was demonstrably below the Necrons, even if only just in terms of technology. It's actively putting Tau tech over Dark Age and has no place in the narrative, there are other ways to show the whole AI thing.

Tau.

Fucking weebs

yeah i'd say that is true. seriously i see everywhere that these Necron guys are supposed to be advanced but when i line them up with the other factions tech they seem to be on the same level but have a fancy respawn ability. i know that is a bit generallized but it is mostly true.

Does the Assassinorum count? I don't like those fuckers.

I mean theyre some super special snipers, can pretend to be anyone and also basically be insane reapers from overwatch.
I don't see the joke anywhere and they just seem out of place.

sure. they are a faction in their own right... wasnt there a plot line that involved them temporarily taking over the Imperium?

Marines, mostly. Entirely because of the fanboys. They're overrated and it upsets me. The aesthetic is cool. The lore is cool, though most of my knowledge about them is from FFG, rather than BL. I just know way too many people that wank then all day whenever a 40k discussion comes up.

i am with you on that. really my favorite books that involve them are the ones where they are part of the supporting cast. the Gaunts Ghosts series is a good example of what i mean. they can be quite interesting but i find them to be boring when they take center stage... oh and also i want to play a freakin game where i play a guardsmen dang it! just imagine a game where you play as the weakest thing on the battlefield and everything around you wants to and probably will murder rape you into the ground! seriously you can get some fun gameplay out of it. sort of a mash up of those games where you cant kill the thing hunting you and a FPS/third person screw-cover-upandat'em shooter. oh and you can kill the thing only it is really really hard to do with a flashlight.

tau

gay

I'm sure From could do a good job with making that kind of game, and I'd definitely play the shit out of any 40k game that focused on something other than marines. My wet dream is for a 40kfightan game, desu senpai

Same here. They seem to suppose to be the glass cannon human super soldier to the Marines tank-like durability, but they come across as better than the Marines in to many ways

Tyranids. I hate large intergalactic threats that have only just shown up and are suddenly the biggest deal in the setting. It's especially bad because Tyranids completely lack any character as a faction or any notable individuals. They're just space bugs. The idea that the races in the setting should have to unite in order to repel these thoughtless aliens with no history or involvement or face extinction is just annoying to me

Eldar, though Taus creeping up there. I almsot started them to since I really liked the whole combined arms approuch others have said ealier, but they just went full retard robo mode. Also the fact that their the best at everything ever annoyed me. I remembered when the Imperial Navy had better pilots because hey they trained hard and they fought fucking everywhere all the fucking time. Now tau are better pilots because Tau

Fuck Space Wolves.
Sincerely,
Necron Player.

Assassins seem out of place in massively corrupt Byzantine space Empire full of scheming nobles and an equally corrupt Inquisition dedicated to the elimination of the government's enemies?

but how are they going to compete with the Grim dark series of Starcraft? create interesting unique characters, races, and plot lines? that could never work! it has been statistically proven that if you rehash the same thing over and over again and just change it slightly enough to claim the copyright to it people will buy it! (i say sarcastically)

>ywn play a mass effect style dark eldar game about building your kabal and leading raids on realspace
Why even live?

>I hate them because they left.
You should feel happy for them because they got out while the getting was good

We'll bang, okay?

I want all Space Marines gone, just replaced entirely by hordes of regular dudes like the Imperial Guard maybe with an occasional powersuited commander. There certainly don't need to be 50 flavors of powersuited meatsacks.

But then, I don't really play 40K. It is probably not meant for me.

Necrons for sure followed by tau. Both were needlessly shoehorned in. I wouldn't mind the diversity in factions if the fans of either weren't so obnoxious

Tau.
Fucking star trek mary sue crap.

HA!

As a non-player, can you tell me how necron fans are obnoxious?

i know it feels futile but the space marines. i dislike them very much. very little difference between the chapters. and they just soak up all the attention. in a massive universe full of crazy war everything seems to focus on damn humans! the necrons are always awesome (though i prefer their more terminator origins), the 'nids are a legit threat that seem to just pop up and get brushed ot the side every now and again. tau could use a bit more flavor but i love their mechs stuff. always enjoy. yeah i enjoy everyone but the damn space marines

Mostly on here. I want to find the guy who drew that smug necron picture.

Tau, closely followed by Necrons, closely followed by post-1e Tyranids.
Tau would be great as a sort of anti-Imperium: a conglomerate of mostly equal minor alien races united to survive the FUN! of the 40k galaxy. They had the seeds of that in their first incarnation, and that, along with their strangely practical philosophy of warfare, made them interesting. Modern Tau are a bland, overdesigned, blight.

Necrons always felt out of place, doubly so since the setting has so many ancient killer robots. The Tomb Kings IN SPACE modern aesthetic is just apalling.

Tyranids, well, user said it already: Though 1/2e 'nids were pretty interesting: an entirely spaceborne species fighting almost exclusively by proxy, and with biotechnology that could actually be distributed to their servitor races. Also (Z)oats vs Squats.

...

Tau don't belong in 40k at all. Their entire design boils down to "let's skim some money off those Japanese cartoons my nephew is watching constantly". Their writers are creatively brankrupt, there is no depth to the Tau and they have lost their way.

For those summerfags too young to remember, the entire point of the Tau is to show that nothing pure or good is supposed to exist in 40k. They are supposed to rise to power, but immediately collapse into corruption and wickedness just like the Imperium and Eldar. Because there is no brightness, there is no hope in 40k. Tau need to hurry up and authors need to stop dropping hints at the Tau being secretly orwellian genocidal assholes. They need to go full grimdark.

yes they definitely seem to only exist because GW wanted to get into the asian market.

Which is fucking stupid because the asian market is largely focused on actual GUNDAM models, which are superior in quality to GW models and way fucking cheaper, because Bandai can into capitalism.

All SPESS MEHRENS. Fucking tiresome. They should be a sub-faction of the Imperium and nothing more.

it really does seem that the Imperium is often the sub-faction below the marines doesnt it? when i first got into WH:40k i actually thought they were the main military force and the Guardsmen were the planetary defense forces and the PDF (before i knew they were the PDF) were essentially cops.... when i got into it more though i quickly found i was only kinda right on parts of that.

I hurt myself today... To see if I still feel...

Guard. I can't believe I wasted all that money

Because there are still more Eldar than there are Tau. There are more humans on one Hive World than there are Tau. There are more Orkz than there are everything. There are more Tyranids than there are Orks. Etcetera.

Absolutely not! And I'd love an assassin based sub-faction.
I just hate the Assassinorum with it's super duper special awesome EXTRA SUPER SOLDIERS. The Astartes are that. You don't need insane super soldiers when you already have them. You dont need 360 noscope snipers when you have literally any dedicated sniper in any other army. And the weird shapeshift ones... eh, okay they are kind of cool.

But basically they read a little like someone's 40k fanfic that they added into canon.
I want the Assassinorum dead so something better can take it's place.

yeah i wish there were assassins who seemed more like your average everyday person instead of super soldiers....

tau hands down

more plot armor than ward could ever dream up. worst fanbase even surpassing marines and their codex lost all its flavor it might as well be codex riptide/crisis suit

>tau were what got me into warhammer
>loved the sleek design and combined arms
>gw keeps making retarded big mechs that go against the original tau codex

I just want an army full of crisis suits, fire warriors, kroot, pathfinders and hammerheads led by Aun'Shi...

I was hoping the auxiliaries would get more love, they seem to be getting brushed aside

Recent times GW seems to be forgetting the other IG regiments.

Its the reason why the Scion lore is so underwhelming GW could have done so much shit.

There is a Scion regiment who dress up as necrons with no reasoning other than

"we fight eldar good"

I look forward to 40k's inevitable End of Times, as not only is it a certainty that my Space Marines never be squatted because they're the most iconic thing in 40k, but seeing a retcon/reboot of 40k similar to Age of Sigmar with the Tau being completely annihilated would be totally worth it. Made ten times better if I get to see all the local Tau players ragequit and sell their armies if GW was mad enough to squat them entirely like tomb kings.

>tomb kings
Don't remind me user...

Fuck Necrons. Newcrons, Oldcrons, fuck them all. They add nothing to the game or the setting. They are the trash faction.

Eldar.

I fucking hate Eldar.

"homosexual" should be a lifestyle, not a political faction.

Underrated post. So Cash.

I mean, I fucking HATE Eldar. Like you wouldn't fucking believe.

And its not even the crunch. I don't even hate Dark Eldar, (if they'd lose those stupid hats they'd be fine) I just want the eldar to get in a rocket ship and shoot them into the sun.

They are the most worthless fucking beings in the galaxy. Everything they do annoys me. If I had a choice between being born a ork, (even a gretchin) and an eldar, i would rather be a damn squigherder.

There's only one flavor of Eldar, though. Two if you'd count Dark Eldar. Tau are catching lots of hate, but there's only one flavor of them. Same with Tyranids. Meanwhile, ten thousand different types of Space Marine.

Friendly reminder: If you think space Marines are cool, you are a child.

>There's only one flavor of Eldar, though. Two if you'd count Dark Eldar.
Four if you count Harlequins and Corsairs. And then there is exodites and Crone Worlders.

>four flavors
>four consecutive numbers
>all four
praise the omnissiah!

Harlequins aren't a full faction, not even a half-faction. The others have no official support.

Chaos, or more specifically certain factions of chaos.

Guys like the Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion, World Eaters and Black Legion are fine because they actually seem to embody, at least at times, 'the old war'. To many have descended blindly into the worship of chaos or becoming tools (I included World Eaters as they are one of few who actually still fuck the Imperium up on occasion). All the others have become to muddled in God Worship, dicking each other over or just sitting around doing nothing but being a minor pain in the Imperiums side. And yes, I can feel the Despoiler jokes coming, at least in fluff they try and make him seem threatening it is just hampered by GWs refusal to move the plot onwards.

I also hate the fact when Chaos is mentioned everyone goes to CSM. Whole Guard Regiments turn to Chaos, there are the Dark Mechanicus and Titan Legions, rogue inquisitors and the like. I hate 'Chaos' just means 'Spikey Marines', give me my renegades, mutants and non-astartes traitors.

Also wish the Gods were less active, being more like old Norse Gods or the Warhammer Fantasy version of actually picking Champions and uniting to fight the Imperium instead of fucking with each other and their champions/worshippers.

Corsairs have a FW list.

I utterly despise Newcrons.
They're absolute shit and a laughing stock. Oldcrons were truly grimdark, something to fear rather than something that trots around the galaxy to collect trophies while struggling with senility.
Oldcrons were legions of unthinking, mechanical slaves tasked solely with harvesting all life, atom by atom, to feed their ever hungering gods.
To kill an Oldcron was to buy time, to cheat fate for but a moment, as it would rise again and again until the deed was done.
More than Chaos and Tyranids, Oldcrons were the bearers of ultimate doom. They were the faces and harbingers of total obliteration.
Oldcrons were THE grimdark. Oldcrons were THE 40k.

i really wish there was more material on the dark mechanicum. one of the coolest fucking premises in all of the lore to expand upon and there's just so criminally little

>Because there are still more Eldar than there are Tau.

I don't think so. A single Tau city supports billions of Tau and non-Tau.

>There are more humans on one Hive World than there are Tau.

That's retarded. You are re The Tau conquered several Hiveworlds and included them into the Tau Empire. They were more humans in them than the Tau.

>You don't need insane super soldiers when you already have them.
Astartes aren't insane. If you tell them they need to assassinate a planetary governor, or an inquisitor, or a canoness, they will ask questions. They have leaders who are accountable, if not to themselves, to organizations that generally run a tight ship. If an assassin is seconded to someone, that someone gets to do whatever they want with him.

Superhuman warriors also tend to attract atttention when walking through an enemy command structure. You're not likely to be able to sneak a space marine into the center of an enemy command stronghold without people noticing.

that is fucking hilarious. mind if i steal that quip?

I only have a passing interest in Warhanner, but I guess Chaos and the Nids.

The moment I found out how the lore just kind of blatantly spells out "one of these two are going to completely fuck the universe" it pretty much killed any investment I had in the setting. Same with fantasy, also.

There's no fucking point in reading the story if I already know the end.