Why play T'au?

[Filius]

Dear boys and girls in the service of the Greater Good,

 

I've been a long time Fan of the "Why play Blood Angels" Thread, as it gives a bright spectrum of Insights on the Reasons why people go with this Faction. So as nobody seems to start a similar Thread over here, I'll do it myself …

 

Why do you play T'au?

 

Or to open the scope even a bit … What are your reasons for the T'au, no matter if you play them or not …?

 

… and maybe you might want to share, why you struggle with your T'au from time to time.

 

 

 

Thank you very much for your attention and your devotion to the Greater Good!

[Filius]

And to give you some inspiration, I'll make the start myself. Like most other 40k-Afficionados from the 90ies, I was first uhm  … let's say "suprised" by the Appreance of the youngest Race in the early 2000s … to say the least. But … I learned to like them. Here are my 10 best reasons for the T'au …

 

1. O'Shaserra, Shadowsun, Commander Tsundere herself. One of the very, very, very few female HQ-Choices in the Game and afaik the only one without a valkyrien, big breasted Armour or not half-naked. Plus: She's a real cool Unit.
2. Unisex Troops. Finally! Everyone in the Galaxy is trying to kill everyone else. In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war … buuut … only mostly men fight. About time that a faction comes to the conclusion that it miiight be an advantage to also let the other half of the population fight. Aaaand: How awesome, they look exactly the same in their Armour. I sooo love it.
3. T'au = Gundam = Battletech. I really, really loved the Mech Design of the original Battletech. The Phoenix Hawk was my first ever painted Mech. The Rifleman, the Archer, the Thunderbolt, the Shadow Hawk, the Stinger, the Griffin, the Marauder, the Longbow, the Battle Master aaand … and thats kinda funny … the Warhammer! I really, really loved them. And … they are nothing but Gundam. And T'au are nothing but Gundam, too … so … how can I not love them? And the manifold options for conversions! I must admit, that I am tempeted to rebuild most of the above mentioned Battlemechs with Crisis Suits or Broadsides …
4. Shooting. Because it's the reasonable thing to do. It much easier to create better guns than to create better gunners (if you're not the Tyranids). And I just love the Idea of a whole gunline of Fire Warriors shooting down everything that moves.
5. Fire Warriors are human beings like you and me. Okay, okay, they are Xenos beings, but at least they are not genetically crafted Uber-Xenos. They are normal people who face the vast horrors the Galaxy has to offer, hide behind their Tidewall and shoot everything to ashes with blue dakka. Apropos Tidewall …
6. The Tidewall! It is really beautifull aaand usefull at the same time. One of the coolest and most unlikely things Games Workshop has ever given to any Faction.
7. Cool Scenery. I never liked any of the Imperial Scenery. But the T'au style of scenery looks posh and I imagine it fun to build. Actually it's the only Faction next to the Eldar that I think builind Scenery for would be fun.
8. Drones. The list of cool T'au thing just doesn't end. Actually this point should have come right after "shooting" because it's the second most reasonable thing to do, when your head of the Military. Create Guns that don't need Gunners! Cheap, flying guns, that can be operated from remote. And the also look cool and aaalso offer many options for conversions.
9. They are a fast Army, too. Everything that is not a Strike Team, a Breacher Team or a Pathfinder Team either has a Jump Pack or is a Skimmer. Shooty and fast … this is a tasty burger combination.
10. Japanese inspired Culture. Actually … the T'au are built up from several Cultures. But as I had an Interest in Japanese Culture for many years, I especially welcome those influences within the T'au.

… and yes, I didn't mention the Riptide and the Stormsurge. They are currently just too big for my taste; way to big.

 

P.S.: Ah, and it should be noted, that I currently don't play T'au myself. Just got the Minis lying around. But I will!

Edited June 20, 2017 by Filius

[foamy248]

Ooh, I'll bite. The Tau were my first army, and I chose them because of their 'light in the dark' nature - in a universe filled with oppressive regimes without anything that resembles basic morals, entire races teetering on the edge of extinction and factions who are entirely evil/NOMNOM IMMA GONNA EAT EVERYTHING, the Tau were a race filled with hope. Additionally, the Tau resemble humanity in its early stages (when it was really, really successful); they're progressive and open-minded. And, interestingly, they also have this subtle dark side, especially concerning the Ethereal caste and their 'mind-control'-esque nature. Plus, Farsight's awesome and so are battle suits....

[helterskelter]

Battlesuits and auxiliaries for me, I really liked them when they came out, and the fact it was a mutli-race army.

The vespid were nice little marine hunters in previous editions, a packed out kroot squad can dish some damage too.

And the suits with their multiple weapons systems give a proper sense of customisation and adaptability.

I also really, really, love the cyclic ion blaster :p

[The Yncarne]

At the time of their release I was bored playing Dark Eldar. I really liked the Fire Warrior and Devil Fish aesthetics. I didn't care for the suits. I like how the army is designed to be played even if it isn't always so in the rules. I really pushed myself from a gaming standpoint with my Tau army. Nearly every fig (all the ones I play with) were converted in some way.

 

I mostly played Tau until 5th Edition when the core rules really hurt the codex. It was time for a new army.

[Dreagher]

For me it was a mixture of the look of the army and the combined arms way of warfare. That plus the fact that they actually care at least a bit about their soldiers, oh and bringing mind controlling worms to negociations. :-D

[Honda]

The T'au were my first real army, this was back at the end of 3rd edition. I had been observing play styles of the various armies at the time and T'au allowed me to play an Armored Cav force the way I thought it should operate.

 

These were also the heady days where "Fish o' Fury" was a viable tactic and  I had one basic list that I fielded against everyone. It had four 12 man squads of FWs in Devilfish, 3 Hammerheads (2 x Railgun, 1 x Ion cannon), 2 x two man crisis suit units with plasma/missile pack, and twin melta Shas'o who was my assassin. A super fun list and very challenging to play win or lose.

 

Then things changed, (5th edition), the T'au became "darker" (which I didn't care for) and I wanted to play the good guys, i.e. Us, Humanity.

 

So, I sold my army (ended up somewhere in Hong Kong) and never looked back.

 

But I've always loved the T'au aesthetics and I've held off on building T'au for a long time, but I'm planning on starting them again for 8th at some point.

[Lippy]

... oh Brother Honda, how strange it is to hear those zealous tones discuss the filthy xenos as you do!

 

 

I started looking into Tau in Summer 2015, and in the August one of my mates offloaded a load of stuff to me very cheaply.

Turned out that in the September/October we being drip fed rumours of a new codex, so it was excellent timing for me.

I chose them for my second army after IG largely due to aesthetics, but also because nobody in my club played them, and they stand out from the rest of the grimdark with a completely different feel (mine are crystal blue and evil suns yellow!).

 

If you like shooting, they're the army for you of course.

 

I fell out of the Greater Good last October, for a couple of reasons though.

1. Because I'd played them heavily for a year (ignored by Guardsmen) and wanted to try something else (along came the Templars!);

2. The army was getting a bad rep because of the perceived cheese they could dish out.

 

The issue in that perception is that I only have 1 Riptide, No StormSurge, and in friendly games regularly brought Devilfish Firewarriors, Stealthsuits and a Skyray.

But in this new dawn of 8th, I am stoked to be able to play a proper 'Tau Empire' army and not have to revert to Farsight rules in order to spam Crisis Suit Troops, and be able to properly deploy fish of fury tactics, but now with Dfish and Breachers !

 

Also, CadreFireblade, Pulse Accelerator Drone, Firewarriors AND Sniper Drones... I cannot wait!

[Seahawk]

I wasn't interested until the 6th edition codex because of the new models.

 

I like robots.

 

That's basically the only reason, other than I wanted a race that had long barrels on their weapons. Space Marines' stubby guns weren't doing it for me.

[depthcharge12]

They were my first army and first love. I valued higher firepower and mobility like modern militaries, which Tau excelled at. They are an interesting mote of dust in a massive galaxy, but their days are numbered if a legitimate threat like the Imperium ever turns its full attention on them. Their unique way of life (or lack thereof) and need to prove themselves in the short years that they have makes them culturally different to that of the wider Imperium.

 

But I'd being lying if I didn't mainly choose them for their rockem sockem robots :P

[jeffersonian000]

Battlesuits and Drones! Mostly I just want to play Mobile Infantry ala Starship Troopers. As an avid Gundam and BattleTech fan, Tau aren't either, never got why people compare them to each other. When I want to get my Mecha on, it's Imperial Knights all the way!

 

SJ

[elmo]

When I first turned from WHF to 40K due to a lack of players in my local area I found that about 90% of the players had SM.

 

Not being one to follow the crowd I decided to have a look at the alternatives. I already had an Orc and Goblin army in fantasy along with an Empire force. Space elves did not really appeal to me either but it was the ray of enlightened hope spread around the Eastern Fringe as opposed to the grim dark outlook in the rest of the galaxy that finally moved me towards our little blue guys... and the Battlesuits of course ;)

 

I like the way that the T'au are not superhuman. They try to peacefully absorb other races for the greater good even though these advances are sometimes unwelcome and force must used. The way T'au do not waste lives unnecessarily in defending ground but have a fluid battle system (in the fluff at least) using a combined arms approach.

 

Finally I like the aesthetics of the models and the Devilfish chassis is still one of my favourite vehicles.

[Lippy]

I agree on the Devilfish chassis being a favourite. Its so fluid in design which makes it stand out from all the other factions/races.

On that note, I personally love the look of the Sun/Razorsharks, but had to ignore them in 7th. Now 8th appears to have made them useable (albeit still not fantastically brilliant) I will be getting one.

[Honda]

On that note, I personally love the look of the Sun/Razorsharks,

 

 

Interesting. When I saw them my first thought was, "What. Were. You. Thinking?"

 

I love FWs treatment of the Tau, especially their aircraft. The GW version just doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I just need to see the model in RL, but all the pictures I've seen so far haven't done it for me.

[elmo]

I currently own 3 painted and 1 unpainted Barracuda (1 old style - 3 new style) and a Tigershark AX-1-0 along with 3 unbuilt Sun/Razorsharks but I am a firm proponent of the Barracuda/Tigershark shape for T'au fliers. My Razor/Sunsharks  may be getting a bit of a conversion ;)..

[simison]

I started playing Tau earlier this year, after finally opening up the old battleforce box I got during my FLGS' anniversary sale. The Tau will always be my xenos army for two reasons.

 

1. Crunch - Guns, lots of guns. Since my primary army is Blood Angels, I will always have a way to get my melee and glorious close combat fix. With that side of me sated, I wanted a proper ranged army. And I can think of no army that excels at ranged combat better than the Tau. I especially love the standard Fire Warrior squad, it is my favorite basic Troop choice. 
2. Fluff - Unapologetic Optimism. Although GW has added some grey and dark, the T'au are still the nicest faction in 40k. More than willing to attempt diplomacy first, the T'au don't seek to simply crush their enemies beneath their heels, but to raise them up as equals. In a fictional universe that coined the term 'grimdark', the T'au are the rebellious teenagers, aiming always to be noble and bright even if they don't always meet the mark. 

That is why I will always have a T'au army.

[Filius]

 

*snip*

1. Crunch - Guns, lots of guns. Since my primary army is Blood Angels, I will always have a way to get my melee and glorious close combat fix.

*snip*

 

Ha, that's funny! It the other way round for me: Because I know, I'll be playing T'au some day (soon), I am constantly drawn towards the Blood Angels, because I think: I already have decided for a shooty T'au-Army, so my Astartes are best to be Melee …

[Knight of the Raven]

I didn't care for the T'au at all other than loving them most out of all factions in the first Dawn of War series, but then Games Workshop updated Vior'la color scheme into that gorgeous black and white ensemble with Warzone: Damocles and I was sold.

 

Didn't make more than six fire warriors because I don't have enough pouches and grenade canisters for any more even with two boxes though.

[Firepower]

I liked the philosophy of warfare.  A small dose of realism in an over the top ironic setting was refreshing.  But I repeatedly got frustrated with the models, so never really got anywhere beyond a giant pile of grey plastic.

 

The models may be better now, but I'm slow enough just expanding my Crusade.  A second army would bury me (and bankrupt me ).

Edited June 29, 2017 by Firepower

[Filius]

I liked the philosophy of warfare.  A small dose of realism in an over the top ironic setting was refreshing.  But I repeatedly got frustrated with the models, so never really got anywhere beyond a giant pile of grey plastic.

 

The models may be better now, but I'm slow enough just expanding my Crusade.  A second army would bury me (and bankrupt me ).

 

Interesting!  Which parts of the Models frustrated you?

 

I took a look at the Minis and the Painting Guide and already thought: "I'm never ever going to paint that Fire Warriori Lenses, as they show it in the Guide. They are just far tooo small."

[Firepower]

Eye lenses are easy.  Eyes are hard. :P

 

The original Firewarriors were lousy fits, with sloppy sculpts.  The off-arms never connected properly, always struggling to either connect to the shoulder or wrap the hand around the gun properly.  The segmented leg armor was a smear of plastic on several different poses.  

 

The Crisis Suits were great as a concept but such static poses (and those damn ankles which they quietly modified later on to be more durable) and required 2 offshore factories, 200 hours of man power and no less than 3 helper elves to convert well.  

 

The Kroot were...well, Kroot.  God help you if you wanted that pewter Krootox to fit together.

 

The Devilfish were...well, I hate painting tanks in general, and those thrusters never connected without an ugly seam.  If I had my airbrush back when I diddled about with Tau it would've been more tolerable.

 

Sooo just about everything in the range tweaked at my admittedly childish level of impatience in one way or another. :lol:

[Shaolin_Monkey]

This is easy.

For me it's just Kroot.

I have played Tau in the past and may one day again but the draw has always only been the Kroot.

They are amazing amazing race with cool models and great background. What's not to love?

 

 

And kinda the drones too I guess, but more from a "looted by Grots" kinda angle.

[Trevak Dal]

T'au were my first army back in 5th edition (which I had no intention of playing, until one night my friend and coworker was reading his white dwarf with Lizardmen on it and I was like "what the :cuss are those!? Dinosaur guys!? :cuss yes, I'd play 40k if I had an army of those guys!"

 

See my friend had tried to get me into 40k, showing me the various models and army backgrounds. I hated much of the background, and space marines for the stupid big pauldrons, skulls everywhere and bellbottom armored pants (that :cuss is still dumb looking to me).

 

I was and am a huge Halo fan so I had a higher expectation for powered armored infantry, and the rampant Imperial ignorance turned me off.

 

 

Orks were gangbanger fungus monsters in space and were a joke army. Next.

 

Tyranids looked cool, but I didn't like the idea of painting a lot of models.

 

Chaos was like the Imperium but with Daddy issues and waaaay more skulls and impractical spikes and horns.

 

Dark Angels didn't appeal to me, because while I like Green-i like that UNSC gunmetal green. And again...the frocks and robes for the monk chapter? Over their armor? That :cuss was dumb because either the fabric would rip and give easily, or was strong enough to snag and trip them up.

 

Black Templars, skulls and chained their weapons to themselves, making reloading difficult or impractical.

 

Blood Angels...vampires. I don't like vampires, they creep me the heck out.

 

space wolves, well they were my friend's army, and his passion. He did a lot of cool modeling and stuff with them, and I liked elements of them, but didn't like the lack of helmets in combat, wolverine like Super sense of smell or no.

 

Grey Knights were :cussing awesome to me, and if they had had the plastic models for them back then, they would have been my first army. Jedi super Marines that stand on the bridge and none may pass? :cuss yeah. Still found the practical development of marines (especially GKs) dauntingly dumb and impractical, even for the stupidly massive size of the Imperium, because of its own ineptitude. They were of course all metal at the time, and were the most expensive army to collect so pass.

 

Eldar were elves. Dark eldar were torture happy elves with :cuss models. In the Elder Scrolls Oblivion, I enjoyed roleplaying as Pelinal Whitestrake and killing lots, and lots of elves. Liked their background though.

 

Necrons, zombies/the Terminator in Spaaaace. Not my bag.

 

Guard were fighting WW1/2 in space. If they were presented as more modern warfare...but in space, I might could have picked them up. Same if they had had rules for Gaunts Ghosts or if I had read about them at that time.

 

T'au were by comparison multicultural, able and willing to adapt to change, willing to negotiate, didn't immediately enslave a population of torture/beat them, and infact improved just about every planet they came to with better ways to run factories with greater output and less waste etc. And they were high tech.

 

They were a combination of several things I liked. They were like the Federation from Star Trek, they flew around in Gundams/Mobile Suits/Armored Cores, were also like the Covenant from Halo. But in the end of things, it was the Lizardmen that got me into it, and my friends desire to try and write rules for an army.

 

I wanted to write the background and lore...so I bought the Lizardmen codex and read it cover to cover and was even more fascinated with them.

 

We tried a couple of different things, modifying the Kroot Codex from chapter approved, using the Black Templar codex.

 

I didn't like them as humans, but as Covenant Sanghelli inspired Lizardmen in space who saw the human Emperor as The Quetzal, and rose up against the slaan masters (who had been apart of the Cabal) forcing them to become navigator/pilots for their ships as an Arbiter/Emperor's Champion leads forces to save the Quetzal's chosen race from the fell forces of chaos-they are pretty badass I have to say.

 

We were going to use Tau firewarrior weapons as a base along with Lizardmen bits to make their weapons, taking inspiration from Tael's Nagi auxilliries.

 

We ran into production problems with the weapons, so I was like "well...I'll make a Tau army while we put this on hold,"

 

To be honest I don't like the look of crisis suits in comparison to the rest of the army, too blocky when a lot of their other units have curves on them.

 

And the GW T'au fliers look like :cuss compared to forgeworld, they look like some of the kitbashes that showed up on ATT for various things, but worse.

 

I sort of dug Farsight's whole thing if not his color (he's red to show he's hot blooded...but T'au blood should be blue. Obviously it was an artistic fluff choice to differentiate them from mainline Tau armies)

 

Shadowsun is one of 15 metal models I have (the rest being stuff that came with my chaos army I eventually bought and the 2 boxes of vespid I got as a gift from my friend) and is in my top 3 favorite 40k models. (Shadowsun, Grey Knight Terminators, The Red Terror)

 

Before finding ATT, people told me "Strength 5 shooting! 30" range! Get lots of firewarriors!" So I got my :cuss stomped a lot. But learning the truth of things...and perhaps being too reflexively bitter and angry seeing their ignorance as malice, along with feeling hogtied with background, and every idea j has immediately rejected as "dumb" or "not 40k" I rebuilt my army to killing space marines, and lost any emotional connection to the models.

 

I'd charge my firewarriors into the enemy so my suits could keep killing. I got real good at judging distances in 5th, and got real good at killing Space Marines.

 

We had a campaign which like the Fabled 13th Black Crusade I've read about online spiraled beyond the creators views. At that point in 5th everybody was some kind of space wolf as if Leman Russ had scrawled the codex Astartes in his dung on some cave walls or something.

 

The xenos players rallied around me-i wasn't a "leader" so much as I was like Khârn and was a wrecking ball of rage, hate, fury and spite. Through a series of events, we (the Tau coalition) gained proper ftl technology by reverse engineering Necron tech and working along eldar allies.

 

We glassed Fenris and were on our way to Terra.

 

6th dropped-and our armies got better because now we had 2 shots at half weapon distance and 3 more inches of 2 shots became nasty. Then our 6th book came out and my army was even stronger because it was cheaper to get all my stuff on the field and finally I could take 2 of the same weapon without it being twinlinked.

 

It was the Time of Punishment. For a lot of 6th and most of 7th my Tau didn't get into a close combat unless it was my doing. I felt they were over powering, but were my answer to :cussery.

 

"Oh I'm going to run Ravenwing along side space wolves on thunderwolves and-"

 

*Starts putting stormsurge and Taunar on the table*

 

"Uh... maybe, maybe we can play some zone mortalis after all..."

 

The "Four fingered Mont'ka" is a play on/reference to the bad Five Finger Deathpunch who I like a few of their songs. I was inspired by the album art from War is the Answer for my army's markings and rituals, also focusing on their hunting roots and the Hirogen from Star Trek Voyager and the Predators from the Predator movies.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Trevak Dal

[jeffersonian000]

In all fairness, GK have always been one of the cheapest armies to collect. You could field a 1500 point GK army for under $200 retail back in the day, when the average army was closer to $500-$600 at 1500 points. Tau were on the expensive side, costing up to $1600 for sone 1500 point builds. Just saying.

 

SJ

[Trevak Dal]

When we priced it (back in 5th before the Ward Dex when all the models were metal) it was pretty steep in comparison. And metal. Which meant it was a no go.