Alright so Im basically on a Tau Binge and ive been enjoying it immensely .
The Tau are some of the most two faced hypocritical aliens in 40k, and it say's something about how much worse the galaxy is for them to be considered something of a "good guy" faction.
The thing about the Tau, people need to realize is that they are an extremely repressed society that tries to live by an impossibly perfect set of ideals. Almost like human beings trying to be Vulcan. The appeal of reading is seeing that rubber hitting the road of reality and finding out how they react. Because it's not always handled in the typical grimdark standard of 40k. It has the potential to still be there, the Tau for all their postering can be just as flawed as humanity, but there still is earnestness to their intentions. It's an alien and at times misplaced desire, but you really do get the sense that the average Joe Tau isn't lying in trying to share prosperity with everybody else. The problem is what they want is often logistically not possible or is at odds with their orders. So they must adapt to reality and that's often very interesting to me. A space marine is not going to give a second thought to putting their own race above another, but a tau? A tau can actually feel guilt for that and wonder if they could have handled the situation differently. Im not saying they are saints or anything, but their moral drama reminds me of something like gundam in how the grunts can aspire to a higher moral standard then the actual leadership in charge.
Shadowsun: The Last of Kiru's Line by Braden Campbell
The interesting thing about Shadowsun's origin story is her pride and by the book nature falling apart the second she realizes she's in a saving Private Ryan situation and that her family is dead. Tau live an average of 40 years, and she's got a very limited time to back and retire on the tau farm before it's too late. It's pretty good at showcasing that the Tau despite trying to make things impersonal are capable of having legit family's and that emotions can leak out of their oriental Facade of logic and reason. (Tau don't have traditional family units, they have state mandated banging sessions and the kids are raised by said state, but it is possible for the parents to take them in later as their own)
The absolute best part is how it showcases a plausible example of a Tau collaborator. The planet being invaded is completely screwed, there's only one measly imperial guard regiment with one (kickass) orbital canon. The Tau are fully prepared to glass the shit out of everything to get rid of the gun. The Guard leader they've captured hears of this and full on collaborates to save his people
. Throughout the whole book Shadowsun is extremely and I mean extremely skeptical of this guy. She's a barely a step above full blown racism in giving him shit. Mostly because he lead an assault that got a lot of her men killed, but she's got a lot of prejudice that even her own men notice. There's one slick scene where her acting second in command get's between her and the prisoner. She's just about to blow his head off and instead of fruitlessly trying to argue with her, the second just beats the shit out of him and makes it look like he's following her lead when he's stalling for time so she cools down. It's a very good demonstration of the difference between a experienced Tau and a Naïve one. Wasn't even doing it out of goodness's sake he just didn't want her to lose honor/face from shooting an unarmed man. A relatively short but fun read.
Fire Warrior by Simon Spurrier
If there is only one book I can recommend for the Tau it would be this one. This was AWESOME. It's an adaptation of the Fire warrior Tau game. The one where some nameless dude Mary Sue's his way though entire legions of imperial guard, space marines and Chaos. The game so unrealistic it was recently labeled non-canon. Yeah well...
This is the canon version.
I dont even know where to begin but this book expands so much on the actual plot it practically makes the game look like a propaganda broadcast. The main dude Kais, gets a full blown voice, backstory and everything. He's a son anxious to live up to his father's memory and afraid he'll never live up to his expectations. A green horn who only fired his weapon once while patrolling a kroot shithole. Then the doors open up, he steps into the killzone and..
Now it's been spoiled to hell and back that the reason for all this is because old korn flakes took an interest in him. It's actually more complicated then that.
A demon separate from Khorn tried to slowly influence him so he could be a perfect host body
Regardless this book is at times the best kind of Bolter porn as you watch this guy just tear up everything in front of him while everyone else reacts. I particularly like how it made the extra effort to show how ragged he gets as fighting goes on. He gets covered in gore, his armor is shredded, he's had to frequently steal enemy equipment and he's barely gotten any rest. The scenes where he fights space marines are some of the best shit in the business. The first time one shows up, his immediate reaction is to immediately shit bricks and go "welp im dead, had a good run". By the end of it he's personally killed 11 Raptor space marines and a shit ton of Chaos undivided. And it fits the canon! Dude uses plasma pistols, suicide drones, grenade launchers rail guns and crossfire tactics to believably kill the big lugs. He's an absolutely broken PTSD wreck by the end of it feared by his own people, but man it was cool.
Best part was the ultramarine Captain loosing his shit. This dude gets a dying message from his librarian, his BEST friend that he trusts with his life.
YOU MUST JOIN FORCES WITH THE TAU. IT IS THE ONLY WAY.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
All of the scenes where they are forced to work together against chaos are solid gold. Most of it is through the intercom, but it is just so dam funny because he is trying. He's trying so hard. "COME ON YOU ALIEN RETARDS! HELP ME FIGHT THE DEMONS!"
Voice of Experience by J C Stearns
This needs to be a full blown series. Its frankly criminal its as short as it is. This short story follows an extremely rare perspective from a human collaborator who's gone all in on the Greater good. former imperial guard captain Kalice Arkady. She defected with a hundred other guardsmen and now works as a liaison to the tau. Somebody's sabotaging Tau shipyard construction and the Tau want her and her Water Caste partner to find out buddy cop style.
I liked how this did not have a cruel twist ending with the Tau, they legit trust her enough to give her a gun and she's fully committed to the cause when comparing and contrasting how fucking brutal life in the imperium is. That being said she's not stupid. She knows not all tau entirely trust or love humanity and that there are cracks here and there. (if a dockworker tau abused a human who's going to care? Not all Tau do it, it's not mandated policy, but if someone implied they have less rights then everybody else and posted guards you could imply a lot without technically doing anything "wrong") I like that she has the viewpoint of an optimist and tries to legit be a bridge between the two worlds. There's some cool twists and turns and I very much would like to see this character come back later.
Blades of Damocles by Phil Kelly
Phil Kelly has something of a bad rep on Reddit which I thought was funny. He's a decent writer and I like the pacing, lore and setup of his books so far. Im under the impression he's the go to guy for showcasing the shady nature of the ethereals and the tau in general. He's just really bad at setting up the environment. Shit will just pop into existence around characters and I sort of have to fill in the background in my brain as it comes into place.
So the big appeal of this is book is it showcases the first major attempt of the Imperium to wipe out the Tau. or at the very least shatter their morale and put the fear of god into them.
It does not succeed.
I really liked how the ebb and flow of the campaign is depicted every step of the way. The imperium bypasses most of the Tau defenses to warp to the heart of their empire and take out one of their core worlds. The SM companys (mostly follows Smurfs, but successor fists, white scars and iron hands all have brief cameos and mentions) start deep striking all the major cities in an attempted shock and awe campaign and it turns into a massive shitshow. Smurfs get shot out of sky and picked off in the streets with plasma fire. It's not a one sided asskicking. The marines give as good as they get, but they lose a LOT of guys, by the end of it they almost lose an entire company. Eventually after a lot of trial and error they manage to figure out the Tau have no counter for pskyers but well.. good luck getting past the snipers. Then the Nids make their first major offscreen apperence and...
calgar says pack it up boys!
Something I thought was really cool is that the novel is following two main perspectives new to me. Commander Farsight and the greatest asshole of them all Cato Sicarius
I love this cocky bastard. Dude pulls a leroy Jinkins on his squad first chance he gets and leaves them behind to go try and kill Farsight. This might be an origin story of sorts for him as he's just a squad leader in this. But he repeatedly puts his squad at risk to do stupid dumb shit and I love it. At one point he absent mindedly puts a plasma pistol RIGHT IN front of a brothers eyes before pulling the trigger and muzzle flashing him. Then when the company leader dies his first concern is who will be promoted. Oh yeah and being based enough to stomp a Tau woman. (the memes leave out that she was trying pull out a gun, not that he gave a shit) Before being retarded enough to stomp around a tau training facility and give them enough data to construct countermeasures that win the engagement. Would not mind reading more books about this wonderful asshole.
Meanwhile farsight for all intents and purposes is Optimus Prime.
Farsight is pretty fun to read about because he comes across as one of the few grade A good guys of the setting. Trying to do right by his people and win the war with the least loss of life. It's a losing goal and I like how he beats himself up over this. He goes though a lot of bullshit while trying to win the war, and it doesn't help when He starts getting accused of thought crimes soviet style and temporarily has his rank stripped by a former jealous mentor. One of the coolest aspects of his character is how he seems to be the only one who can call out the Ethereal's bullshit without being mind controlled. I have a theory about that.
I think the Ethereal's use pheromones to control or guide fellow tau, and Farsight somehow screwed up his olfactory system by rapidly decompressing his body in an effort to escape drowning. There's nothing for the pheromones to catch onto.
It's a pretty fun read and even if your not a tau fan its got some good smurf stuff in it.
Highly recommend the Tau Empire Anthology book. It has a few of these short stories including some others I recommend.
Farsight by Phil Kelly which sort of acts as a prequel to the Farsight features Farsight murdering Orks on a rust planet. It also explains the origins of the Oblatai drones.
A Sanctuary of Wyrms and Out Caste are both by Peter Fehravi are both great reads and tie in well to Fire Caste which is a great novel and I highly recommend it.
Fire and Ice also by Peter Fehravi is also great. It has Farsight (or someone who claims to be him) working with Alpharius (or someone who claims to be him), but there's more to the story then that.
If there is only one book I can recommend for the Tau it would be this one. This was AWESOME. It's an adaptation of the Fire warrior Tau game. The one where some nameless dude Mary Sue's his way though entire legions of imperial guard, space marines and Chaos. The game so unrealistic it was recently labeled non-canon. Yeah well...
Kais is a fucking great character. If Farsight is this old, wizened sage who keeps his trauma in check through will and meditation Kais has become this PTSD-riddled nutcase completely unable to verbalize anymore from how mentally broken he is as a result of all the shit he's seen and done. IIRC it was made canon that the Kais in Dark Crusade is that same Kais, so it seems like he decided to recover enough mentally to try diplomacy like Farsight... only to lose and then start freaking out again and snapping.
By the way Fire Caste was supposed to be called "Thunderground" but GW made Fehervari re-name because they thought it would sell more. I've listened to two interviews with Fehervari and GW really fucked him over. We could have got some of the best 40K books from him but GW put a lot of limits on what he could do and shut down most of his ideas.
I never liked Tau lore, they just read like a worse Eldar with a constant superiority complex over humans (despite being a tiny fish in a pond), and faction wide plot armor with how they aren't fucked by AI and Chaos. Humans being better under Tau is also more of an informed trait as they are still third rate citizens who work constantly, live and die by the whims of an approachable caste and only stick with the system due to religious dogma and the threat of violence.
Absolutely. Considering he'll likely be legends anyway, may as well have made him imperial agents, so you could attach him to random space marines and shit like in the books on occasion.
If there is only one book I can recommend for the Tau it would be this one. This was AWESOME. It's an adaptation of the Fire warrior Tau game. The one where some nameless dude Mary Sue's his way though entire legions of imperial guard, space marines and Chaos. The game so unrealistic it was recently labeled non-canon. Yeah well...
Damn, that is a glowing review. That was the one 40k book I simply couldn't read all the way through because I couldn't stand it. I thought the idea of this Tau going against the grain and becoming more violent was really interesting at first.
This is where it really lost me. So much of it felt contrived. On practically his first deployment, in his first encounter with SM, he gets nailed in the head with a bolter round that happens to not penetrate his armor and on top of that doesn't explode, he gets KO'd with space marines standing right over him. You're telling me nobody's gonna stomp on his head and make sure?
It was decent bolter porn, but it felt like the character was just invincible by dumb luck, and made SM feel like lumbering, slow idiots rather than highly trained devastating killers. It's interesting that you came away with the opposite perspective; I did like how the Tau started to fear him and get freaked out by his increasingly merciless perspective. Maybe I'll give it another shot, as I did not get to him working with UM.
Fucking finally. Now they just need to do another MTO of the Valhallans. (A special command squad box with Kasteen, Broklaw, and Sulla, or Amberley and her retinue, would be kino, but that's too much to hope for.)
Yeah, for his armor, I mixed transparent green from Monument Hobbies with their metallic medium. I then used Army Painter Rough Iron, heavily watered down as a wash on it to give it the oxidized coroded look.I also used the rough Iron on the edge of his shoulder for his wrapped arm
For the eyes, I painted them white before using a fluorescent orange on them.
