Would a Space Marine chapter ever defect to the Tau Empire? What would happen if they did...

>Would a Space Marine chapter ever defect to the Tau Empire?
Theoretically, but not likely. If anyone was going to, it would be someone like the Lamenters who care particularly strongly for civilians.

>What would happen if they did?
They'd be marked as traitors by the imperium, studied by the Tau, and probably kitted out with fusion blasters and the like.

>What would they be like before and after defecting?
As I said, this would have to be a particularly sympathetic faction, as they'd have little personal gain from the defection. However if they were convinced that humans living under Tau were safer from the influences of Chaos and that, were Tau supported and aided, their alliance could deal with more hostile xenos, they might. After the conversion I don't know if anything aside from aesthetics would change within the chapter itself.

>what possible incentive
+6" of range and +1S

No writer would ever reasonably write the setting's darlings defecting to anything but Chaos, so it wouldn't happen.

If it did though, Imperial retribution might very well exterminate the Tau outright. The first Damocles Crusade was launched because the Tau were trading peacefully with outlying Imperial worlds, and friendly contact with the xenos couldn't be tolerated, especially xenos with a subversive diplomatic caste. Considering the Imperium was enraged enough to launch a crusade over that, something as shocking as the Emperor's own holy angels of death defecting would make eliminating all the defectors and crushing the Tau one of the single highest priorities on the Eastern Fringe.

Tau might not even accept Marine defectors purely for how much retribution it might invoke from the Imperials. It's not just poking the sleeping bear, it's tazing the fucking thing.

>What are renegade chapters - the post.

I asked a GW store manager that question. He said that anything can happen in 40K because it was a huge setting and that GW encourages you to forge the narrative. If i want Gue'vesa marines then I am free to have them.

So GW is okay with it.

*ahem*
Soul Drinkers.

>>What are renegade chapters
Chaos space marines that haven't earned any recognition from the chaos gods yet.

probably not. the only way i could think it would be possible was if the marines did not have the hypnotherapy that made them loyal to the imperium. If i remember correctly the only marines who were not csm who lacked the therapy were some of the younger renegade soul drinkers and they didn't turn out well anyway.

Yes, especially if they're one of the unlucky chapters like the Blood Gorgons who have an innate disloyalty flaw.

No.

Killed by Inquisition and/or other Marines.

Dead.

The only thing uniting all Astartes, from the most pious White Consul to the most corrupt Word Bearer, is their utter hate towards xenos. A renegade Marine might throw away his servitude to the Imperium for selfish reasons, but he would never change one master to another, weaker, xeno one.

That being said, there are renegade warbands that fight as mercenaries in exchange for wealth, slaves or whatever. I can imagine them strikig a deal with Tau, although they would definately show their disdain towards them on every possible occasion.

Defection and joining the foul xenos is utterly impossible.

This. I was thinking about a situation where a Space Marine chapter was tied to a particular world and its citizens. Maybe its their homeworld. The world defects to the Tau but rather than beat the world in line, the Chapter lets them do their thing. Either they're weakened, busy with something else or already borderline renegades. The Tau actually help the citizens and still allow worship of the Emperor. When trouble comes to the planet, such as Orks, the Marines find themselves shoulder-to-shoulder with the Tau, fighting to defend the population.

The biggest turning point comes when the Imperium rocks up to bring the world into line. Either the Chapter is declared excommunicate traitoris from the start and they don't really have a choice, or they decide to defend the planet's population against an "unjust attack", the result is the same: the Marines join the Tau to fight against the Imperium.

Now, rejected from the Imperium, the Chapter can choose to go on a penance crusade, where they'd be certainly destroyed. Or they can continue the defend the world with the Tau. An easy choice for an unconventional Chapter.

Both Damocles Crusades ended in (let's be honest) defeat. The Imperium had their opportunity at the first Crusade but decided that the Tyranids were more important. At this point, the Tau are impossible to remove from the Eastern Fringe without leaving the Imperium undefended against Chaos, Tyranids and everything else. They left the mould for long enough and now they can't get it out. Just because a Marine chapter defects does not mean that this would change.

Damocles failes because the Nids WARE a serious threat, wheras Tau ware and still are a pain in the butt that grows more irritating the longer they're left alone. If the story on 40k would progress accroding to the fluff (and I am aware it wont) they would reach a moment when the Imperium would just Exterminatus the fuck out of their key worlds and then left the rest to be eaten by Nids or slaughtered by Orks.

This. You think the diplomatic nicety/legal fiction of "ork snipers" is the worst the =I= can accomplish?

More like 25 goddamn Eversors in boarding torpedos smashing into your Chapter's Apothecarium/gene seed-bank and another 25 Culixi hitting the Librarium.

Exterminatus requires fleet action by the Imperial Navy that the Tau (as shown time and again) can defend against. If the Imperium couldn't destroy Dal'yth, a 1st Sphere Sept World, in the first Crusade then they have absolutely no hope of being able to do it now. Well, they could, but then they'd get fucked by whatever's now not being suppressed by the Imperial Navy.

The Imperium sent four assassins to take out the entire Tau leadership in the second Damocles Crusade. I have a hard time believing that they have the resources to send fifty to deal with a renegade Chapter, especially since there are more deadly (and Chaos-aligned) renegade Chapters running around.

Anyway, the long-short of it is that whilst there is no precendent in the fluff, as said, 40k is a huge setting and it's not outside the realms of possibility that a Marine Chapter could have allied with the Tau and not get instantly curbstomped. The setting is meant to be played around with. You can have Marines following your own minor Chaos God, Orks that worship Tzeentch, an Eldar Genestealer Cult, Oldcrons that follow a complete C'tan on the fringe of the Galaxy, Guardsmen with spider legs. Convert the models, play the game and have fun.

The Chaos chapters are in the warp/daemonspace/not near habitation, the Tau empire by definition has none of these defects.

And the Badab war wasn't literally what I described because Forgeworld has a power-armoured boner.

True. I do like the angle that a renegade chapter will usually fall to Chaos, solely because it's so difficult to survive without the help.

However, a Tau-allied Marine Chapter could be in Tau space which, as the latest books have revealed, is near impenetrable to the point that the Imperium just found it easier to wall them in.

Except its not inferior. On table top the guns yes but marines do have power armour over shitty tau armour and technically their biology is from technology. In fluff boltguns are way better than pulse rifles.

> Space marines are the most Loyal people in the Empire
> would never go to the Tau, despite them being the closest thing to the Federation.
> literally half of the space marines went over to the evilest force in the universe coz LOL space magic

I think it's especially unlikely.

Marines fall to Chaos because everything falls to Chaos, and despite appearances marines are in fact more resistant to Chaos than the average equivalent human.
Defecting to aliens is particularly egregious.

Secondly, Tau don't really have much Marines want or are interested in. Marines are a warrior society obsessed with war and human supremacy in all things. They hold the Emperor to be the perfect man they aspire to and when they crack, they only seem to crack in a twisted reflection of this militant supremacy.

I believe that was for a fanfiction thing where amongst other things the Ultramarines create their own little Imperium and adapt Tau tech.

The Tyranids were basically irrelevant to the ultimate outcome of the Damocles crusade. It's true that those ships were needed elsewhere, but the Crusade had already failed by the time they got word of that. They had lost 1/3rd of their ships on the orbital defenses of Dal'yth (the first properly defended Tau world they came across), the ground war was a mess that was chewing up guardsmen and even costing them space marines, and Tau reinforcement fleets were closing in on them from all sides that if they had been forced to fight in their already weakened state would have annihilated them.

The only difference is that someone up the chain decided those ships dying in vain against the Tyranids was a better use of those lives then them dying in vain against the Tau. Because if they hadn't been ordered to pull out, they would have been slaughtered and everyone involved knew it.

>Crunch is totaly the fluff!

No it is not.
Otherwise the 'Nids would be no thread, and the Tau would field more Riptides than fire warriors.

>I do not get the rules the setting operates on.

pointed it out nicely.

I doubt a whole chapter would, but I could see a handful of marines doing it on their own.

If a group of marines got declared traitors by the Imperium, but still wanted to serve the cause, going to Tau space might be one of their better options.

Think about it. There are a lot of humans living in Tau space, under the heel of the aliens. I imagine the Space Marines rolling in, looking for a place to stay, and setting themselves up as watchdogs to protect the gue'vesa from alien oppression... only to find that things are actually far less oppressive than they are used to.

The Tau want to be buddy buddy with the Imperium, so they would accept the Space Marines with open arms so long as the SM agreed not to start shooting everyone.

In return the marines get a place to crash, refuel and resupply them, and a post to protect humans at. They probably wouldn't care much if the Tau themselves come under attack, but if one of those human populations gets invaded by orks or something the marines respond.

Over time, living close tot he Tau, they might forge a kind of respect with the xenos. Even during Damocles, the Space Marines remarked that for filthy goddamn xenos the Tau were almost pretty alright, since they used honorable tactics, didn't use warp magics and generally were not assholes about the whole thing. Though a large part of that was probably the Tau returning a bunch of fallen Space Marines at the end of the crusade, something that the Marines on-site were pretty damn happy about.

To be fair, what you describe is a retcon.
The oldest version was the crusade grinding to a halt and the 'Nids coming knocking.
So it was either diverting more ressources to the crusade and weakening the defense against the incoming Hive Fleets or pulling out and using ressources of the crusade for defenseive measures.

What gave "pulling out" the upper hand were the Marines who deemed the Tau honorable. At least for being xeno shits.

I the oldest version space battles were not mentioned aside from the Tau using Mantas (at that time also implied to be bigger than now) to halt the advancing Titan legions.

Never happening.

I could possibly see a Marine being swayed by an equivalent human faction. Especially if they had retained some real historical knowledge through their more logical methodology.

It'd still be extremely rare though.

> Man we sure are having trouble coming up with believable personal and political reasons for the favourite sons of the Emperor to turn against him, let's just drop this whole 'character motivation' thing and say they felt the Darkside.

Chaos is just a lazy cop out for GW writers and you know it.

>The only thing uniting all Astartes, from the most pious White Consul to the most corrupt Word Bearer, is their utter hate towards xenos.

Fabius Bile actually served under the haemonculi of Commoragh for a time.

There are Marines so disenchanted with the Imperium that they'll work for xenos. They're just very rare and not often sane.

Angron, Perturabo, Mortarion, Lorgar and Konrad all fell for legit reasons.

They may fallen for legitimate reason but as far as I recall they still all ended up going over to the big C correct me if I'm wrong.

When a space been rebels he *really* rebels. They just don't do anything by half I guess.

DELET THIS

>He said that anything can happen in 40K because it was a huge setting and that GW encourages you to forge the narrative
...except when they declare it's the end of the world and kill off an entire setting.

But they never did that in 40K?

it was an apprenticeship that went sour hard and fast, it wasn't service.

if fabulous bill's relations with the coven of the 13 scars is the best defecting astartes can manage with xenos, i doubt anyone jumping ship for the tau will do much better

Of the entire Imperium some 1000s of billions of people, Space Marines would be the absolute last to defect to the Tau. They wouldn't even defect if the Emperor died and the humans all voted for Tau leadership.

>But they never did that in 40k YET

FTFY

>slaves
Did someone say sexy eldar slaves? I coulda sworn someone said sexy space elf slaves

I like the idea of a Renegade Chapter signing to a contract to serve the Tau for a couple centuries in exchange for a world and wargear.
So you'd end up with marines in Tau colors beside a pauldron with their heraldry on. Just counting the days until their contract ends and they don't have to take directions from blueberries.
Skip forward a few decades and some of the Tau are realising the contract is about to expire and the world they gifted is now far behind their borders in their home terrtories. But we're allies now, right?

Yup, I can imagine a warband selling their swords and bolters to Dark Eldar in exchange for sexy Craftworld slaves to do as they see fit.

Too bad Chaos Astartes would probably waste this potential on some sort of ritual, concentrating on Eldar's psychicness instead of sexyness.

Don't worry. That scenario will look increasingly likely and maybe even common as the Imperium goes to hell, literally.

What. The. Fuck.

>Would a Space Marine chapter ever defect to the Tau Empire?
Not if he wants to live he wouldn't
>What would happen if they did?
They Emperor would smite them
>What would they be like before and after defecting?
Communist sympathizers followed by Communists.

Oi! Wot wud appen if dey went an join'd us? Wud der be a chap-ta uf ork marines?

What nobody has actually touched on yet is the problems the Astartes would have keeping their equipment maintained under Tau rule. While most of the basic stuff can be replaced or indeed repaired by the Earth Caste, the Tau wouldn't possess the immediate knowledge to fill-in for the Adeptus Mechanicus on things like Archaeotech, Warp-Drives and a lot of fleet based stuff. So the Chapter's going to have to decide between waiting for a few decades for the Earth Caste to figure out how to even maintain their more esoteric shit or otherwise wholesale start replacing stuff with Tau designs, some of which will be inferior and some of which will be superior.

What if the Tau promised to cure some gene seed defects in successor chapters?

How would they? The Tau have a strong technological base but their ceiling isn't really high enough to fix the issues the Magos Biologis can't, the Adeptus Mechanicus still has most of its biotech and performs straight-up space magic on the fly on the flesh.

That being said, even if the Tau could I doubt the Astartes would believe them, or accept outside help in dealing with their own burden.

No? Like... not even slightly.

Depends on the actual use of the weapon, in all fairness. From checking out the morphology, to the fluff on how the weapons actually work and what we've seen neither the Boltgun nor the Pulse Rifle is an objectively superior weapon. The Boltgun is an assault weapon on steroids, the Pulse Rifle is basically a modern day sniper rifle in how its used, both are better at their particular role.

>coz LOL space magic
They fall because chaos can actually offer them things, tempt them in ways the imperium can't.

Renegade marines are marines who have cut their ties of bondage with mankind and grown infatuated with their own personal agency in the galaxy. They are still as completely contemptuous of alien life as before, but now combined with the mentality that servitude is completely beneath them. There is literally nothing the tau can offer them that they didn't already have access to while serving the Emperor.

Like, there's a reason why it's only parasitic infection/complete psychic domination that turns space marines over to alien powers. Aliens a shit in their eyes, regardless of loyalty.

Tau don't really know how to mess with biological shit, much less biomagical shit. That's why all their stuff is mechanical.

> Man we sure are having trouble coming up with believable personal and political reasons for the favourite sons of the Emperor to turn against him, let's just drop this whole 'character motivation' thing and say they felt the Darkside.
Yes. Correct.

You still seem to have trouble understanding the setting.

Except they do. Their entire species have engineered itself over centuries. They even have baby factories.

This. The biggest temptation to a Space Marine is power. Most (successful) Space Marines are recruited from feral worlds (i.e. backwood hicks) because they are instinctual and because they aren't fucking philosophers. The moment they start asking questions about the meaning of life and loyalty to the Emperor is when they walk their own individual paths to either pure faithfulness to the Emperor and His vision of humankind, or to heresy and eternal damnation.

And keep in mind again most of these superpeople aren't fucking bright and will reason in rock paper scissors arguments, despite having superhuman brains. Either they want more power to protect the Imperium of Man, or they want more power for themselves to do whatever. Its that straightforward.

In this context, there is absolutely nothing the Tau could possibly offer to a Chapter. No greater cause because the Imperium is the greatest cause to humankind, no greater war projection power because they can't even into Warp travel, no promise of more battle since they can only afford to launch one grand offensive every couple of years, and no eternal life or elevation to daemonhood or even Slaaneshi orgies.

Take a fucking hint when even Farsight is looking to the wider universe and to the great war which is deciding the fate of the galaxy, currently beyond his reach.

What if they worship technology?

Since the Heresy, Marines are brainwashed as children to prevent them getting ideas other than FOR DA EMPRUH.

>They have no real incentive to join the Tau for any reason.

Wouldn't go that far. Tau have advanced tech and a higher standard of living. Marines defected for way dumber reasons back in the day. EC were basically just offered a round of blowjobs.

Tau don't hand out their fanciest toys like... toys. Compare that to the Admech, where a friendly relationship basically buys you access to the equivalent of a gun show convention.

>Muh bolter is better than plasm rifles y-you guize

Marine-fags. When will they learn?

>Wouldn't go that far. Tau have advanced tech and a higher standard of living. Marines defected for way dumber reasons back in the day. EC were basically just offered a round of blowjobs.

>Tau have advanced tech
Which basically is as powerful as what the Imperium fields, which is basically nerfed shit compared to the height of their power. Thats not even going into how older Chapters tend to have the fancy advanced Great Crusade era stuff in their armories - in which case why would any Marine ever give a shit when they already have fancy cars in their garages?

>a higher standard of living

For Space Marines? Hah no. They're the equivalent of frat monks who are serviced 24/7 by an endless servitor army. If you're a sphess wolf, you get to drink free booze too. And if you're like some IH tech junkie, you get to have friends forever with servitors and dreadnoughts. Friends who won't ever lie to you or bullshit you.

>EC were basically just offered a round of blowjobs.

How about I toss you in a pit of eternal blowjobs and see how you like it?

What am I looking at?

They have combi-plasmas and you don't.

Test tube babies and gene modding are two completely different things user.

You... have that completely ass backwards. Even Gue'vesa get pulse rifles and shit. Whereas, Ad Mech are notoriously secretive and possessive to the point they lock stuff away so well they FORGET about it and will happily sacrifice their own allies just to get a chance to steal some of that sweet, sweet xenos tech.

This image makes me think...

What if instead of Renegade Space Marines joining the Tau, if the Tau manufactured their own Power Armor reproductions for their human auxiliary?

A sort of Chinese counterfeit Space Marine Chapter.

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>Which basically is as powerful as what the Imperium fields

It's really quite sad just how stubborn and delusional imperium-fags are. This is just flat out refusal to read the most basic tenets of a faction's fluff.

>Even Gue'vesa get pulse rifles and shit.

Your standards are clearly pretty low when it comes to impressive tech.

>Ad Mech are notoriously secretive and possessive to the point they lock stuff away so well they FORGET about it and will happily sacrifice their own allies just to get a chance to steal some of that sweet, sweet xenos tech.

What does that have to do with Forgeworlds basically eternally bound to provide the Adeptus Astartes with free shit? Favored Chapters with special affinities and friendships to Forgeworlds also get bonuses like artificer armor repair.

There are Space Marine chapters that have defected from the Imperium of Man, but not gone over to Chaos. There are also individual Space Marines who have become dissatisfied with the Imperium, and not turned to Chaos. There aren't many. At least a few are simply pirates.

There are examples of entire chapters ignoring Imperial orders, and chapters that don't HATE XENOS as much as the Imperium wants, or care for innocent civilians more than the Imperium wants.

There are also a few instances where Space Marine chapters have worked with the Tau, with honor, and without brutally murdering them or defecting, as well as a few other instances of Imperials organizations actively working with the Tau. (Picture)

The Tau have recruited human civilians, planetary defense forces, Militarum soldiers without a fight. They've also recruited wounded or defeated enemies recovered from the battlefield.

It is possible that some elements of a Space Marine chapter or even individual rogues might defect to the Tau Empire, though there are no specific examples. One novel did have a Death Watch marine get captured, and the Tau sent in three people to try and convince him to join up. He spit acid in the face of one, I think, and then the whole bunker got its shit kicked in by more deathwatch.

What might happen? Depends on who is doing the writing. Benevolent Happy Time Trusting Federation Tau would probably put them to work. Either put enough of them together to make a whole squad, (think the exact opposite of Death Watch, lol). Or they might become leaders/HQ choices for squads of normie Gue'vesa. Imagine a platoon of Tau Guard with a single Space Marine leading it. Might get a unique suit, or might keep his regular power armor. Would probably get kitted out with more reliable Tau stuff, though they don't have much in the way of stabbies and smashies. If nothing else, they'll probably be called on for PR.

Shame they don't have plasma that doesn't kill them.

Your faction's fluff last read as a pyrrhic victory with catastrophic losses.

Or if they just built knockoff space marines as drones/battlesuits for psychological warfare?

>Your standards are clearly pretty low when it comes to impressive tech.

Well their standard stuff is better than oh so rare and holy bolters, which despite their status suck fat dick.

>What does that have to do with Forgeworlds basically eternally bound to provide the Adeptus Astartes with free shit?

The shit they want to give away they give away. The things that are actually cool get filed away and forgotten.

Why? Space Marines are just basic infantry that can be killed. Tau forces need better protection or more numbers. Better productions methods will improve the former, improvements in AI will improve the latter.

And? Did that change the fact their tech is better? Also, not my faction. I'm just capable of reading other faction's fluff. Unlike Imperium-fags.

>Well their standard stuff is better than oh so rare and holy bolters, which despite their status suck fat dick.

A galaxy wide empire was built and maintained on the strength of amassed bolter fire.

>The shit they want to give away they give away. The things that are actually cool get filed away and forgotten.

Because they don't need them just to survive.

>And be on model next time or I'll kick your ass, punk!
Artists working on TV cartoons are under an enormous amount of stress and have to pump out a ton of shit in a short amount of time. Presumably this is something the guy did to vent.

>Did that change the fact their tech is better?

Either you are correct and the technological advantage was so minuscule its not even worth noting in the final outcome, or you are incorrect and the final outcome is ultimate proof.

>before
loyalists
>after
exomunicated traitors

>maintained

Not doing such a great job on that. There was about two seconds where things weren't total shit and then BLAM 10 thousand years of decay.

>Because they don't need them just to survive.

Uh... Sure. It's not like Cadia is literally on fire or anything. Oh...

What do the Tau really fight that would be particularly scared of a Space Marine?

Fielding an auxiliary of "Space Marines" in order to bolster the morale of the human's in Tau Space sounds like something the tricksy Ethereals might even do.

This is of course supposing that nobody notices their Marines are only 6'6" and their armor has a tendency to not block direct bolter fire.

>Imperium try to destroy Tau
>Fail
>THIS PROVES THE SUPERIORITY OF IMPERIAL TECHNOLOGY

10k years of mankind owning almost all of the galaxy is 10k years of mankind owning almost all of the galaxy. And Cadia isn't a Forgeworld. And the Imperium still has a fighting chance in its darkest hour, while the Tau Empire is split in two and is already in the deathly embrace of a Tyranid invasion.

Just stop, weeb.

>And Cadia isn't a Forgeworld.

You're not very good with reading comprehension huh? Probably why you seem to think the definitive grimdark setting is HFY. I guess the preface is just too damn subtle about the 'dystopian nightmare with no hope' angle.

Gue'ron'sha'vesa.

You say that like it wouldn't still be funny for a chapter to slowly turn to Chaos /after/ joining the Tau.

Tau fleet actually has a lot of trouble with Imperial fleets.

Like that time they developed a virus that destroyed part of a hive fleet.

Like those Kroot guys they've studied, who change their genetics after every meal.

>Space Marines will steadfastly hate xenos and steadfastly be humble servants of the Emperor but when they decide to break those rules it's always and only the second on.

Space Marine gets a bump on the noggin, maybe even a psychic bump on the noggin, and forgets his brainwashing.

I am genuinely a tiny bit spooked 'caus I was just about to make this thread.

>All the disloyal assholes already fucked off
that was well over 10,000 years ago in the 40k timeline. Are you saying that that isn't enough time for new traitors to emerge?

You would think it would spark a story about a space marine chapter that does actually desert to the Tau, but nah, people are too salty about Tau to actually make it happen

I would rock some Reasonable Marines-esq types that have thrown their lot in with the Tau.

Battle suits and marine infantry would be nuts.

god damn.......
40k fluff threads are awful.
90% of you faggots dont know waht you are talking about.

some nigger saying that tau guns are worse than bolters.... amazing. just... amazing.

ukitakumuki.deviantart.com/art/PHOBOS-TACTICA-40K-303084986

That's almost exactly what that pic is, expect its from the IG but I guess the one in the pic defected.

The big mistake on that thread is treating Space Marines like a normal human. They are not only indoctrinate, they don't feel and think like us at all. Their reasons to fall for chaos have nothing comparable with why we would be seduced by chaos.

>i am the only loremaster fear me and obey

you are aware that those you disagree with would count you among your highly exagareted 90%?

>There are also a few instances where Space Marine chapters have worked with the Tau, [...](Picture)

dude those are not Space Marines. Name one example of Adeptus Astartes working with the Tau.

Not shooting them on sight is not "working with"