WH40K: Tau hatred

[Mr. Oragahn]

Can't stop laughing at the monthly popping anti-Tau hatred at SBC, mostly coming from IoM fanboys.

Everything is good to bail out any IoM weakness. Economy of scale supposedly explains why they can't be as efficient per world as the smaller Tau empire, nevermind if in reality, each world should be able to do fine on its own and, in a case of several worlds being attributed the same kind and level of resources, if they truly were obeying the same economical/industrial doctrine, would have no reason not to be able to pull the same shit as its neighbours do.
Or, again, that economy of scale should actually work in favour of the IoM in some rather dramatic fashion.
Then of course the excuse of the Warp comes in. In reality, it gives them an FTL speed advantage against the Tau when it works right. If the IoM had decided to go slower but rely on more stable speeds by using the Tau technique, that excuse of Warp instability wouldn't work. If they prefer rolling dice every time they go to Warp, and either arrive very soon or very late, it's not the Tau's fault. If the IoM can't be arsed to trade some speed for stability, again, it's the IoM's fault. If they can't develop a more stable FTL technology, albeit slower (from a fifth to a third of IoM FTL speeds on the average, which isn't much of a loss really and is what the Tau have access to), then kudos to the Tau, really.
That's not all. We also get a claim of numbers of Terminators lost to the Chaos over whatever number of years/centuries/millennia to balance out the fact that the Tau's Broadside variant of the Crisis battlesuits are found to be described as tough as Terminator suits... never mind that it's said that the BBs are built in greater quantities than their IoM counterparts. They also carry force-field shields, which IoM Terminator suits don't, yet that's not proof of some kind of superiority on the Tau side (?).
The fact that legions of men are sacrificed inside IoM warships to rotate giant circular sections, cogwheels or haul huge projectiles into firing chambers doesn't seem to move them either.
What? Am I a fan of the Tau? Not even. I don't care about them. I'm just laughing my ass off at the desperation coming from Imperium lards, preferring to pick references in books dealing with unique cases (with all the unknown and exceptional conditions relevant to these specific cases) to counter other references instituting overall facts about what the Tau forces are capable of.
All that in a thread titled How bad are Tau equipment?
All in all, it's just a train wreck of excuses as to avoid saying huh yeah, IoM organization sucks (shitty bureaucracy, stupid rituals, so many different designs, loss of tech, ridiculous use of labour force when in terms of space and energy, mechanized systems powered by fusion cores would occupy much less room, etc.), and they overall are forced to go for quantity instead of quality because of that, which pound for pound, brings the Tau very high.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I really had to quote that one:

The Tau fight like a modern army. They're networked, mobile and firepower focused. The only reason they aren't constantly stomping the Imperium is that 40k fluff writers have no concept of how much of an advantage a modern doctrine is.

Let me put it into perspective. On the bridge of a Tau ship you'll find a highly advanced hologram globe serving as a sensor display. (Firewarrior)

On the bridge of an Adeptus Mechanicus cruiser you'll find an orrorey literally made out of brass and gears. (Titanicus)

In space the Tau should be fighting like a bastard amalgamation of Honor Harrington and Macross, flinging massive missile volleys and guided railgun shells from far out of the effective range of the Imperium's unguided, barely aimed macro cannon broadsides.

On the ground it should be even worse. Endless volleys of seeker missiles from over the horizon, guided in by stealthed markerlight drones. Waves of airdropped, expendable gun drones attacking behind the lines, conducting mindless suicide attacks on logistics hubs and ammo dumps.

In the air it is most definitely worse. Double Eagle makes it clear that the Imperium's prime combat fighter, the Thunderbolt, is armed only with line of sight energy and projectile weapons without even the benefit of a radar gunlayer. Their air combat doctrine would be charitably described as moderately more advanced than the Korean War.

The Barracuda, on the other hand, is armed with six long range missiles, two automated wing guns and a pilot aimed ion cannon. Fire Warrior makes mention of drone bombers capable of vaporizing entire city blocks. (Kais fights through the barren plain left behind after a run)

These are just off the tip of my head. Even Imperial wunderweapons like Ordinati or Titans are outclassed by the Tau vastly more capable fliers, which are more mobile, cheaper to produce and have more utility.

And then we come down to the kicker. The Tau mass-produce all this stuff in automated factories. The Imperium can't even make msot of its good stuff anymore, and even when it does its made in slave-labor hellholes that make industrial revolution manchester looks like a haven of scientific management.

It's on the side of caricature on some points but rings true, globally.

[Khas]

In other words, it's just butthurt IoM fanboys repeating what everyone else knows. The Imperium wouldn't know efficiency if it came up and sodomized the Emperor with both Khorne's axe and the Nightbringer's scythe.

[General Donner]

The SB anti-Tau wank can be really hilarious at times. It's just utterly intolerable to some people that the Tau can do anything at all in any way better than the Imperium, that paragon of tactics, technology and weapons design. I remember one time, when one of the Tau guys brought up the drone fighters just about every Tau squad has supporting them, and the Imperium fanboys responded by suggesting the cyber skulls the Mechanicus use serve the same function(!). Any quotes of that caliber this time around?

In my experience, the fanboys deal with the Tau books exactly the opposite way they do with anything else 40k-related: They cherry-pick only the lowest ends, make the most conservative interpretations possible, and then still whine about how even the nerfed numbers their spin doctors put out as a result are "Tau wank" and supposedly an offence against mankind.

(That's not getting into the question of tactics, where people like Connor MacLeod at SDN do their best to make the Tau emphasis on maneuver warfare (as opposed to attritional trench warfare, Imperium-style) into a weakness on their part.)

Why? I have no idea. Given how consistently the Tau trash the Imperium in the fluff whenever they fight on anything close to even terms, one would think it'd be in their own best interests to portray them as dastardly powerful. Since pathetic Tau logically make the Imperium look even more pathetic by comparison. But no one seems to consider that angle.

So what remains? Pure spite at the filthy xenos who dare make their awesome Space Marines look bad by way of comparison? That's about the best sense I can make of it. That, and Connor hated them first for one reason or another, from which it then followed that most of the 40k wankers, who typically just stick to repeating his dogma, got it as part of the package. With well-attested result.

And I suspect it's gotten even more fun of late, if, as the quotes I've looked at seem to suggest, the RPG fluff gives a further upgrade to the Tau.

[Mike DiCenso]

Wow, just wow.
-Mike

[sonofccn]

(That's not getting into the question of tactics, where people like Connor MacLeod at SDN do their best to make the Tau emphasis on maneuver warfare (as opposed to attritional trench warfare, Imperium-style) into a weakness on their part.)

Which becomes even stranger because at least of late when arguing for the IOM he stresses they don't actually do trench warfare. That it is just Imperial Propoganda, because naturally you'd want to downplay your abilities and reinforce your troopers how little their life means, mixed with make do with some bad units. "True" imperial doctrin as spoken by him involves stormtroopers punching a hole in enemy lines followed by mobile tank regiments pouring through.

Why? I have no idea. Given how consistently the Tau trash the Imperium in the fluff whenever they fight on anything close to even terms, one would think it'd be in their own best interests to portray them as dastardly powerful. Since pathetic Tau logically make the Imperium look even more pathetic by comparison. But no one seems to consider that angle.

The problem is the Tau make the Imperium look pathetic no matter which way you slice it. The IOM is a stagnet, cynical bloated corpse-state which relies on sheer weight and momentum to crush its targets, the Tau are an energetic race relying far more on skill and finess to fillet their target. So some naturally come to the conclusion the IOM is far superior and wave any defeats with the writers being Tau fanboys and in a "fair" fight that didn't involve the guard "gimped" would see them steamroll the Xenos.

I remember one time, when one of the Tau guys brought up the drone fighters just about every Tau squad has supporting them, and the Imperium fanboys responded by suggesting the cyber skulls the Mechanicus use serve the same function(!)

That's nothing. I once met a guy who claimed to have written a forty-fifty page manuscript* on why the IOM had superior technology, and how the Tau are below average tech comparable to thousands of alien empires discovered and destroyed daily by the IOM, citing things like of the caliber that because the Imperium had more flying skulls around they were clearly more advanced than drones handed out nearly to every Tau grunt.

* I only saw his highlight reel, claiming no one wanted to shift through so many pages, so I don't know if he actually did have that many man-hours sunk in such an inane topic.

[General Donner]

Which becomes even stranger because at least of late when arguing for the IOM he stresses they don't actually do trench warfare. That it is just Imperial Propoganda, because naturally you'd want to downplay your abilities and reinforce your troopers how little their life means, mixed with make do with some bad units. "True" imperial doctrin as spoken by him involves stormtroopers punching a hole in enemy lines followed by mobile tank regiments pouring through.

No doubt. He's probably aiming for a "golden mean" argument of some kind -- "The Tau are so focused on maneuver, it's to their detriment, but the Imperium can do all kinds of war, even attrition if need be!" Or something like that. Nevermind it makes no sense; that quality isn't exactly highly regarded in those quarters, anyway. Nor any kind of consistency.

[sonofccn]

Which becomes even stranger because at least of late when arguing for the IOM he stresses they don't actually do trench warfare. That it is just Imperial Propoganda, because naturally you'd want to downplay your abilities and reinforce your troopers how little their life means, mixed with make do with some bad units. "True" imperial doctrin as spoken by him involves stormtroopers punching a hole in enemy lines followed by mobile tank regiments pouring through.

No doubt. He's probably aiming for a "golden mean" argument of some kind -- "The Tau are so focused on maneuver, it's to their detriment, but the Imperium can do all kinds of war, even attrition if need be!" Or something like that. Nevermind it makes no sense; that quality isn't exactly highly regarded in those quarters, anyway. Nor any kind of consistency.

Pretty much. The level of specilization and focus Tau give to individual troopers is supposedly too intensive on IOM's scale of combat. That you have to go cheap and reliable, forgoing "flash", if you had to defend a million or so worlds. Or something like that.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Damn, the hatred is so high that any kind of absurd argument must fly. For example, a post of Deadguy2001.

Father Time is the Baneblade Deadguy was talking about. While this is still lower firepower/better armor than I would think is quite credible; it seems quite clear from this also that a few rail slugs seriously damaged the superheavy.

Why are you so dishonest? That quote shows Tau Railguns scoring incredibly lucky hits on the much thinner side sponsoon turrets. Then about two paragraphs later, the Father Time proceeds to effortlessly annihilate Tau armor formations for the next few chapters.

I'm also surprised at how you can call the loss of a heavy bolter sponsoon "serious damage". So again, Lord of Hosts, I'm going to ask why you love to selectively quote 40k novels so much.

BLOOD RAN DOWN Winterbourne's cheek from where his head had struck the inner face of the turret after a particularly fearsome barrage of
fire from a formation of Hammerheads. A trio of hyper-velocity slugs
had slammed into the side armour of Father Time, tearing off the side
gunner's compartment and throwing the rest of the crew around the
interior.

Winterbourne had blacked out for a moment, and when he'd come to, all
three tau tanks were dead. Terra Volta had killed the first, Pride of
Torum another, and a series of missiles from one of Mederic's Hound
squads had taken out the last one.

Spalled fragments from the impacts had shredded his vox-operator and
one of the loaders. The interior of the vehicle stank of blood and
oil and sweat, and Jenko was now doubling as his link to the rest of
his fighting vehicles as well as his target acquisition officer.

'Any word from Uriel?' asked Winterbourne.

Non-serious damage (because Tau weapons suck) is understood as "tearing off the side
gunner's compartment" and "throwing the rest of the crew around the interior", and produces "[spalled] fragments from the impacts" which "had shredded [Winterbourne's] vox-operator and one of the loaders."
Oh, and "the interior of the vehicle stank of blood and oil and sweat".

All that with three hits on the side of the vehicle, most likely at a very open angle (the less effective) since from the former description, the Tau gunships were located in front of the Imperial armour.
What's the point if the inside of a tank gets affected to such a high degree?

It seems that later on the same Baneblade was withstanding multiple impacts, but their source is unclear at best. Moreso, snipers were taking down Tau troopers, which may imply other types of shots used against the huge Baneblade.
It's also possible that the shots were impacting the front of the supertank, which would be considerably more armoured. It's interesting, though, that if the shots had come from the side, they'd have caused even far more damage inside the Baneblade than those distant shots from the front, although a quick glance at such a supertank doesn't seem to reveal the presence of any massive amount of armour on the front.
It's also possible that this one Baneblade was an old machine. With the IoM, the older it is, the better it can get, at least on the ground, especially with the supertanks.
STC only allows to produce modern pale copies.

Let's note that Winterbourne was knocked out for a brief period, while "the command chair sat high in the main turret."
That is, a good distance, inside the tank, from the sponson turret.

Deadguy: a colossal mass of iron means that iron is not iron but a colour scheme that looks like iron!

Page 95
The scale of it was enormous, and it never failed to amaze Winterbourne that such a colossal mass of iron could even move, let alone fight.
Father Time was an immense Baneblade that had served as Winterbourne's command vehicle since his promotion to colonel.

It just cannot mean that the tank's structure contains a shit lot of iron (in its alloy).

[Mr. Oragahn]

IoM fans focus on Courage and Honor. As I said, they favour an exception against the crystal clear rules as they're established in the Tau Codex:

http://forums.tauonline.org/black-libra ... ail-4.html
http://forums.tauonline.org/black-libra ... il-19.html

If you don't use your tech the way it's meant to be used, there's no surprise as to why it actually fails to deliver and gets rolled over, proverbially and literally. It's almost like using a grenade launched as a mace. :/

[General Donner]

Pretty much. The level of specilization and focus Tau give to individual troopers is supposedly too intensive on IOM's scale of combat. That you have to go cheap and reliable, forgoing "flash", if you had to defend a million or so worlds. Or something like that.

I don't see how that follows either. The Tau obviously have a superior industrial output per capita, since they can -- and do -- consistently outfit their troops with superior gear without (to my knowledge, at least) putting a greater strain on their economy than the Imperium. (If anything, living standards among the Tau would appear substantially higher than Imperium-average, arguing for lower military expenditure as part of GDP.) That they're smaller in absolute terms doesn't mean that should be easier for them on a per-unit basis. On the contrary, the Imperium should have massive economies-of-scale benefits working in their favor. So I'll just say he's buzzwording to defend his pet faction.

Then again, it's a little bit subtler than what I figured based on his earlier posting. I can certainly see uncritical fans falling for it without much reflection.

It seems that later on the same Baneblade was withstanding multiple impacts, but their source is unclear at best.

Without knowing the context of that particular discussion, I'd nevertheless be skeptical about such claims, and especially if their source was in any way unclear or else of such qualities as to lend itself to funny interpretations. The armor thickness given for the Baneblade is not appreciably better than the front armor of the Leman Russ: 220mm at best, as opposed to 200mm for the Russ. And we know how well those tend to do against the Blues. (Search for "Tau railguns" in JMS' second post.)

Imperial Armour: Apocalypse II also features Tau battlesuits killing off Imperium tanks, including a famous Baneblade:

The Destructor Phalanx was first recorded in use against the Imperium in the Taros Campaign during the Battle of Phyyra Heights. In this brutal fight, a single Destructor Phalanx accounted for seven confirmed armour kills against the 12th Tallarn Armoured Regiment in under thirty minutes of the engagement, including the famed Baneblade Draco Rex, forcing the Tallarn's retreat and dealing a hammer blow to the usually stout-hearted Tallarn morale.

A Destructor Phalanx, as best I can tell from looking at the book, is a team of between six and twelve railgun-armed battlesuits, along with some hover drones that shouldn't contribute very much additional anti-tank-grade firepower. It should go without saying that the Tau main tank guns have every reason to be of heavier caliber than those their small mecha carry.

Deadguy: a colossal mass of iron means that iron is not iron but a colour scheme that looks like iron!

What, seriously? That doesn't make the slightest sense. A "colossal mass" of color scheme? Are their arguments really that pathetic?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Pretty much. The level of specilization and focus Tau give to individual troopers is supposedly too intensive on IOM's scale of combat. That you have to go cheap and reliable, forgoing "flash", if you had to defend a million or so worlds. Or something like that.

I don't see how that follows either. The Tau obviously have a superior industrial output per capita, since they can -- and do -- consistently outfit their troops with superior gear without (to my knowledge, at least) putting a greater strain on their economy than the Imperium. (If anything, living standards among the Tau would appear substantially higher than Imperium-average, arguing for lower military expenditure as part of GDP.) That they're smaller in absolute terms doesn't mean that should be easier for them on a per-unit basis. On the contrary, the Imperium should have massive economies-of-scale benefits working in their favor. So I'll just say he's buzzwording to defend his pet faction.

Then again, it's a little bit subtler than what I figured based on his earlier posting. I can certainly see uncritical fans falling for it without much reflection.

That said, Tau worlds are supposed to be rather closely packed, which certainly helps as long as they keep the IoM outside of their outer borders, since the time needed for the IoM to travel from outside, the Tau takes the same to cross inside.
I suppose that's substantiated but I'm not looking for the entire thread atm.

It seems that later on the same Baneblade was withstanding multiple impacts, but their source is unclear at best.

Without knowing the context of that particular discussion, I'd nevertheless be skeptical about such claims, and especially if their source was in any way unclear or else of such qualities as to lend itself to funny interpretations. The armor thickness given for the Baneblade is not appreciably better than the front armor of the Leman Russ: 220mm at best, as opposed to 200mm for the Russ. And we know how well those tend to do against the Blues. (Search for "Tau railguns" in JMS' second post.)

Imperial Armour: Apocalypse II also features Tau battlesuits killing off Imperium tanks, including a famous Baneblade:

The Destructor Phalanx was first recorded in use against the Imperium in the Taros Campaign during the Battle of Phyyra Heights. In this brutal fight, a single Destructor Phalanx accounted for seven confirmed armour kills against the 12th Tallarn Armoured Regiment in under thirty minutes of the engagement, including the famed Baneblade Draco Rex, forcing the Tallarn's retreat and dealing a hammer blow to the usually stout-hearted Tallarn morale.

A Destructor Phalanx, as best I can tell from looking at the book, is a team of between six and twelve railgun-armed battlesuits, along with some hover drones that shouldn't contribute very much additional anti-tank-grade firepower. It should go without saying that the Tau main tank guns have every reason to be of heavier caliber than those their small mecha carry.

Yes, but if the railgun armed battlesuits can down a Baneblade, either said Baneblade was a pale copy, or Winterbourne's Father Time was of exceptional quality, a war relic.

Deadguy: a colossal mass of iron means that iron is not iron but a colour scheme that looks like iron!

What, seriously? That doesn't make the slightest sense. A "colossal mass" of color scheme? Are their arguments really that pathetic?

See the link for yourself, no lie. To Deadguy, it's either that, or the iron is sort of fishy.
Mind you, it's also possible that it's a way of speaking. I hear that the average IoM warrior isn't particularly tech savvy, and that it's a miracle if one knows how to build a watermill. So he'd call iron anything that is heavy and metallic. But that's reaching for a complicated understanding when the easier one, that steel contains quite a lot of iron, is the simpler one. Modern steel contains like ~98% of iron.

[General Donner]

That said, Tau worlds are supposed to be rather closely packed, which certainly helps as long as they keep the IoM outside of their outer borders, since the time needed for the IoM to travel from outside, the Tau takes the same to cross inside.
I suppose that's substantiated but I'm not looking for the entire thread atm.

IIRC the Tau FTL drive is supposed to be somewhat slower than the Warp drive the IoM commonly use, but also substantially cheaper and more reliable. (I believe you alluded to that in your first post.) That might also be part of it: They don't have the huge transportation bottleneck the IoM suffer on the interstellar level and up.

Yes, but if the railgun armed battlesuits can down a Baneblade, either said Baneblade was a pale copy, or Winterbourne's Father Time was of exceptional quality, a war relic.

If that's so, then certainly. We know those bigger and more "unique" vehicles can vary immensely in quality. I was just cautioning against taking anything that crowd says at face value without seeing the full quotes for yourself. As you have also had occasion to note; remember how Connor interpreted the "gigawatts" quote from BFG to really mean "gigatons" because it would be more "consistent" that way?

So if one quoted bit describes rather serious damage from a few shots (consistent with other sources), I'd be wary of anything else that seems to say the tank can take them effortlessly. We know they aren't above quoting things wildly out of context.

[Mike DiCenso]

Connor interpreted the "gigawatts" quote from BFG to really mean "gigatons" because it would be more "consistent" that way?

What!? I can understand coming up with a reason why the weapon only required gigawatts in one scenario, or dismissing it as an outlier. But re-interpreting it as "gigatons"?
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

If that's so, then certainly. We know those bigger and more "unique" vehicles can vary immensely in quality. I was just cautioning against taking anything that crowd says at face value without seeing the full quotes for yourself. As you have also had occasion to note; remember how Connor interpreted the "gigawatts" quote from BFG to really mean "gigatons" because it would be more "consistent" that way?

That's even more dishonest than I thought. I always considered, from the perspective I got at SBC, that this piece of evidence was largely ignored ; and as far as I can recall it did seem to surprise the active hammies back then when I brought it up, despite how old and obvious it was, which would tell you where they were getting their information from before they really started to return to their books and quote mine to counter what was brought to oppose their dogma. Those who knew it, if there wee any (thinking of captain orsai, inquisitor ryan, white rabbit, archangel, captain hat, magni, xiophen and imperator pax) clearly kept their mouth shut about it (it's not like they were particularly willing to concede anything, especially not the existence of such an annoying piece of evidence).

That said, the people at SBC could both parroting Connor mindlessly and come with claims which even Connor himself didn't formulate nor argue in favour of iirc, but they were few.
However, I never knew that he had tried to spin the gigawatt evidence in such a pathetically baffling way. When did that happen, exactly? I recall that at the same time I started looking at his silly numbers, he was at least moderately receding on his infantry weapon yields by a few notches. That should be like two years ago, more or less.

In the end, although the audacity of such an alteration of the material is really imposing, it's not exactly surprising either.
Mind you, I did rationalize that part back when I brought it at SBC and the local plebe were like GASP : A quick calc with some generous parameters and the idea that solar flares could last for ten minutes, mixed to the not so impressive speeds and accelerations (Rogue Trader and several books go for a couple gees tops) would actually lead to some low megatons in total. I think the ten minutes timeframe was one I found on internet for a typical solar flare. I may be able to find my calc if I look for it.
On his website, Andy Chambers once said that a turn can represent either 15 minutes or an hour, so ten minutes would fit within a turn and may even allow for a longer flare.