KrakDuk. I find it interesting how their ruling system is literally the “Caste system”. Basically it’s the system where you are given a role at birth and you stay there. Earth Castes are earth. Simple. Spanish controlled Mexico for example had this overly complicated caste or “Castas” system where the more white you are the better, but as races intertwine shit gets out of hand. 😂
Um newest faction? 0:10 You know it’s bad when your faction (the leagues of Voltann)is so forgettable that the tau are still being called the newest faction.😅😂🤣
OH MY GOLLY GOSH I somehow completely left out my short segment explaining markerlights. Idek how that happened. They're basically just targeting lasers for anyone wondering
It's okay, most people do when they play Tau. My brother always seemed to, and then he switched to Death Guard and never switched back. He's happy, but the smell..dear Throne the smell...
Bro did you read about the Tau chaos god? They kinda embodied their believe of the Greater Good on a chaos Entity. Also quite funny how the heroes of the Tau are a Xena the Warrior Princess, the only guy who knows how to melee and found a cheat sword and then there's Lord Shas'la Kais who is just an average angry guy with lots of guns and a few chaos blessings.
What I find so interesting about the tau is that they aren't nice because they are good guys but because being nice is actually quite useful. There is an old saying that prussians wouldn't shoot deserters but catch them and force them back into the army but not because they valued human life but because training soldiers is expensive.
@@lucagerulat307 On a related/unrelated note there’s a super interesting idea in moral philosophy that talks about doing good and altruism achieved through purely selfish motives. Seems like what the ethereals might be up to.
@@MintBunHunter deserters aren't necessarily bad soldiers. Desertion would also mostly happen outside of actual combat. In battle you have other things to worry about. But on long marches or the boring time at Barracks (which were basically like prisons) soldiers would try to get away. Most other European nations had them shoot at the time but the Prussians cought them beat them up and send them back showing there is no escaping once you joined the military.
They are evil, but they are a reasonable, pragmatic and rational evil, which is very refreshing compared to the idiotic and self-destructive evil of the Imperium of Man.
I once made a comment on an imperial guard channel’s video about how I like playing against guard as a tau player, since I think both armies are kind of similar in their mix of vehicles and infantry working together. Let’s just say I got like 15 incredibly long angry paragraphs from people bashing tau and saying “don’t compare guard to your shitty army that’s too scared to do anything but the shooting phase” (also on that point I am rather new and may be wrong but is guard not also like 99% shooting? I don’t think they’re known for having great melee prowess…)
@@marmuhardestboss9197 If you count the Kroot the Tau probably have more melee units then the Guard. Like c'mon. Both are almost strictly shooting armies. Every complaint every levied at Tau can be levied at another faciton.
@@orionknight4803yeah, that’s how I feel about it too, I think people just don’t like tau because they’re new. When the next truly new faction comes out (not counting votann because squats have been around) they’ll get hate too. Edit: having said this, tau have been around for a while though so maybe it’s not that they’re new, idk people just like to hate on stuff
Space marines who fought in the imperium for centuries after getting sniped by some Random tau fire caste who’s name sounds like something you’d say speaking italian drunk from over the horizon:
It is even more hilarious when you realize space marines do have snipers and one of them even took out an ethereal and a commander in the same battle. Or that the veterans have energy shields to protect themselves from snipers.
My first introduction to the Tau was the Fire Warrior fps game. Despite that early traumatic experience, I grew to really like them. Always liked the idea of a more "generic" fish-out-of-water sci-fi faction stumbling into the insanity that is 40k and seeing how they cope with it. They don't deserve the hate they get.
@@recurvestickerdragonI mean that’s how they keep getting imperial worlds to join them. They’re the only ones in the galaxy who knows to say “please” nicely.
It's a shame that it has inevitably faded out (they had a milennia to grow out of their ignorance about the shitty galaxy they live in) because their naivete has brought many of the funniest moments of 40K lore that contextualize the horror of the Imperium from outsider eyes. One of my favourites when a fire caste learned a fallen venerable dreadnought he was studying was, not only once a living being strapped to an agonizing machine of war to keep it in a state of near death for milennia, not only older than his entire species, let alone his empire... But also still alive after suffering catastrophic damages that would render a battlesuit pilot red pulp and looking at him with sheer f*cking hatred in his eyes. He was beholding a being incomprehensibly older than himself, and every cell in that Lovecraftian being wanted him dead. And there was also that time a water caste saw a hive city for the first time, ran the numbers and desperately tried not to sh*t his pants when he realized there were more humans crammed into that hell hole than tau in the whole galaxy. Then there are servitors which diplomats are forced to politely and very awkwardly ignore. Because, you know, the lunatics they are trying to sweet talk think it's perfectly normal to grab one of their own, jam a computer in their skull and tear him apart to turn him into a living forklift.
Remember when the tau empire have an existential crisis when a tau commander destroyed a dreadnought and finding out that this dreadnought is over 6000 years older than the tau empire itself. Yeah !
Ngl, when I was getting into 40k I saw a Poorhammer video of "what faction is for you". They said "do you like Gundam? Then Tau are for you". Well I'm a lifelong Gundam fan... 😂
Tau were for me since they weren’t miserable to paint (I have the painting skill of the average turnip) and aren’t just card carrying members of team evil. The fact that they tend towards shooty over melee just sealed the deal.
Im also a lifelong gundam fan but i despise the tau cus the fans are so annoying with their ego and victim complex about how “iMpEriUm” bad, and them not shutting the f about the blue aliens
I’ll be honest, the reason they caught my eye in the store as a teenager was their resemblance to Tiberian Sun’s GDI. I knew precisely nothing about Warhammer, I was just like “Big guns? VTOL? TAN? Sign me up!”
@@KrakDuk Yeah it really was funny. Thank you for the information I was just remembering the time I was reading a book and a water caste Tau woman was asking a space marine (I don't remember the chapter) if the emperor would like to see great warriors like him killing innocents like her (Tau diplomacy shenanigans) and the space marine just said yes and crumped her like an orc
There has been a recent turnaround for Tau appreciation lately, and im all here for it. As someone new to 40k, i find the Tau fascinating, and like you said, underrated.
Its nice to see some tau content that isn't overly negative - i think it's really fun to have a faction that is more tech - y, tactical, and doesn't just annihilate everything in their path, because it adds a cool layer of contrast to all of the other factions. Having a faction that's so different makes them and everyone else stand out more
@@dereckcordova6954 yep! I like the contrast the tau provide. Having a more good leaning faction who’s young is interesting to highlight just how messed up the other factions can be and how they’re all desperately clinging to the past. Plus I love the look of battle suits and firewarrior armor
I've always wanted a Tau centric video game similar to XCOM were you play as a fire team that is at first made up exclusively of Fire Warriors but you unlock different auxiliaries as the game goes on. So by the end you can use Tau Fire Warriors, Tau mechs, Kroot, Vespids, Gue'vesa and a bunch of other random aliens. I think that would be cool.
As a Guard Player, I LOVE the Tau. Fighting against Xenos factions are some of my favorite games as a guard player. We need to be nice to tau players, cause I rather play games against the Tau, than Space Marines.
See i think the tau as a faction works and could be loved if they were more like a technological advanced UNSC where victory for them is incredibly difficult to achieve and every victory is phyric but won throigh shear brains and stratagey. But unfortunately every single book where they fight the imperium, every single person in the imperium suddenly become the eldar and somehow lose all brain activity as soon as then protagonist factrion appears. God now i know how eldar fans feel and i feel really bad for them
The ability for the Tau to be the Covenant equivalent with a mix of alien species all united under the goal of survival would be rad as hell. But of course GW would have to make more aliens (GW reaction 🤢) and not make more space marines (GW reaction 😭)
They look like they’re trying to go the Necrontyr route where they solely rely on brains to create tech on par with their rivals but unfortunately are no where near the same level as the Necrons
@@bongibot1104 the thing is, they have plenty of concepts on offer. It’d just be a matter of putting them into production. Also for the love of fuck give us gue’vesa models! Making the damned things by kitbashing is EXPENSIVE.
Eh, GW already screwed It up, I think it was Weshammer but may have been majorkill, who calculated that from a notable planet with 1 billion tau, if it was even split amoungst the castes, it would have 250 million fire cast soldiers, and in one of the tau codex’s, it shows a squad where a tenth of the tau had battlesuits, which would mean that the tau have 25 million battlesuits on that one planet alone, and the average battlesuit is superior to the average space marine (not counting the X factor of experience) but inferior to the average dreadnought (still not counting that X factor) technologically speaking, mobility speaking, how well armed it is, and range. So the tau battlesuits from that one planet, which is majority earth and fire caste, so there are more battlesuits than what I have already said. Outnumber the entirety of the imperium’s 1 million space marines by 25 to 1. So sadly that isn’t much of an option anymore
With La'Kais one think I like is the power scaling in books vs video games. In Dawn of War you can actually lose and kill companies, even chapters worth numbers of space marines and in codexes and novelisations they have to say "Well actually, that was just a game. The real numbers were much lower.". But with "Fire Warrior" book? They just said "The things he did in that game, like soloing a guard regiment, several squads of Space Marines, a Word Bearers warband, with several Daemon Princes and a Greater Daemon? Yeah, it all happened, baby."
Lockwarden: "You cannot keep doing this to yourself. We're here for you, Captain General. 😎 Love is a strange thing, dude. But sometimes a break-up is a blessing in disguise."
I’ve always found it interesting that the Tau are the only faction to use lots of unmanned drones. Obviously the Astra Millitarum’s whole thing is throwing hundreds of guardsmen at the enemy, but even the Aeldari don’t use robots (yes, I know wraithguard are a thing, but that’s putting a dead persons soul in a robot, and you could just design a normal robot instead of putting a soul in danger)
they missed the big bad cybernetic revolt(s) so they don't have the prejudice... personally, I think the other races have blown those dangers out of proportion after many millennia of telephone
Hey dude. What a coincidence. Last video i commented about how i love the Tau and would love a video from you about em. Love ypur stuff. Amazing video. Thanks for your effort❤
I have found that most people going against Tau are ill-prepared for a good old Breacher Team swarm. Aka, the "Cowabunga it is then!" shotgun lads that make the Arbites seem sane and measured by comparison.
I forgot which source material this is from but there was a time where they somehow managed to get a venerable dreadnought corpse and when they started tor research they realized that he's been around like twice as long as their entire race and history and it put them in an existential crisis and made them realize how late they actually are
it was in the "Blades of Damocles" book, commander Bravestorm killed a dreadnought and after scanning the interior since the front had ben damaged noticed the age of the marine inside was 6000 years old, basically the age of the tau species, his thoughts were what sort of foe is this or something along those lines.
I just like that they understand if a toaster isn't working, it isn't because you forgot to slather it in holy oil and say the Omnisiah rosary 40 times.
So Shas’la Kais and Shas’o Kais are the same person, the Shas’ part of their name is basically their rank in society. He got a promotion after Fire Warrior and ended up running the Tau faction in Dark Crusade.
"shas" denotes fire caste, "la" is the lowest rank (private), "o" is the highest (commander), and there are at least three ranks in between. fun fact: "kaís" means "skilled" and it was incredibly funny that that's the only honorific the DoW one earned before making commander instead of something more specific like his peers. It's the equivalent of a space marine captain being called "Adequate-ius"
Unfortunately the timeline for O'Kais doesnt align when he was revealed to be a student of Puretide. He was most likely ranked a commander before the damocles crusade happened, while La'Kais was a new recruit in the events of fire warrior that are stated to happen around 200 years after the damocles crusade.
@@fenrismaav GW really out here with an opportunity to do some arc-welding and make Kais one really badass dude who had a hell of a first day and eventually became a pretty darn good commander in DoW by just fudging the timelines a bit, and instead they went "Actually they're different people. That way we can give O'Kais the exact same backstory as _every other Tau commander_ because that's _much_ better, right?" The Puretide thing was cool when it was just Farsight and Shadowsun, it added another layer to their rivalry, the idea that they were once students of the same legend, now taking very different routes. Now it's just like... "Every Shas'O we've ever made a model for and also all the ones we haven't made models for were all in the same class at school."
@@ToaArcan not every commander with a model was a student of Puretide, we had O'Ralai and O'Rmyr. I find it fitting that there were 3 students to Puretide, as each one represents one of the styles of Tau combat. O'Shova for the montka, O'Shaserra for the kauyon and O'Kais as the monat.
Talking of being the tau being naive, remember when they first saw an imperial titan.....that's when they learned that bigger is always better in the messed up galaxy they live in
The Tau themselves, now has a Tau goddess, not to mention some Tau are attacking their own allies. which, may cause problems even could cause a Tau civil war, But what do you guys think?
Those guys attacking auxilliares are fire caste from the 4th sphere of expansion. Why they attack? Well, i am not going to tell here the whole story, but basicaly they went into the warp WITHOUT the Gellar field and has observed what has been happening with their allies. Also, they are angry, because some uncorrupted by then auxilliares has started praying to Tau'va (Greater Good in Tau language) and that basically created a goddess and religion from their ideology and that is the reason of being angry (sounds a bit like the Emperor lol)
I think 40K writers at Jame Workshop should stop trying to make the tau into the Imperium and that the plot line about how some Tau have become rabidly xenophobic towards non-Tau for creating a Tau Goddess is grim derp nonsense.
You did an amazing job representing my favorite faction Also for some reason people always make memes about how much the faction is hated yet I can never find someone who actually hates it and has one of the largest reddits in Warhammer, and i find the art style to be just fine in the setting of Warhammer Of only they'd add skaven....
@@Lampman. thanks! They’re one of my favorites as well. I see a lot of tau hate, but I think it’s mostly just a meme at this point. It’s easy to call them nerds and that they suck to play against. There was a minor resurgence of tau hate in killteam lmao. Their team was quite oppressive and I can say from personal experience not too much fun to play against imo.
I'll never stop laughing at all the times the Tau tried to get the Orks to buy into their Greater Good routine only to get betrayed every time and wind up being hammered flat. Hilarious. "Oh, rite, yeah, we'll be yer mates, lemme jus' 'ave a look at dat big shoota yer got..."
Hey KrakDuk! Loved the video! As a big T'au fan, I got into Warhammer 40,000 because I found the T'au so unique compared to the other factions. Their usage of diplomacy, Auxiliary races, and Battlesuits accompanied with high-technology really made me love them. While I don't like how they have become less good through the years, and are now more sketchy, I nonetheless feel that sometimes they are given a really bad rep because of bias. I am happy to see that is not the case with one of my favorite Warhammer creators :) "Believe in our destiny and stand united, for in unity will we achieve victory. For the Greater Good!"
Filthy xenophile! In the name of the holy God Emperor I deem thee thrice damned, by action, association, and belief, and declare thee Excommunicate Traitoris!
I think the warp storms surrounding them messed with the flow of time, because stone age to space travel with friendly ai in the span of 6000 years is ridiculous. At that rate the dude who discovered fires great grandkid would have a car.
Please make a video about the Leagues of Votann🙏. Your art-style is so nice and the way you explain these factions is great, I'd love to see my faction on this channel
I kind of feel like they didn’t need to make the Tau a somewhat evil faction like the rest, since being a naïve Boy Scouts that doesn’t know the horror they’re up against but still persevering to do what’s right is interesting.🐱
i get anime oooh bbadd but like, pacific rim? gundam but you don't have to care about the people in it? robot walker with 40 missile launchers? you gotta like it A LITTLE BIT right??
I have a friend who plays Tau reguarly, I play IG, and we regularly battled back in 5th ed. When he bought and built his first Kroot kit, he was *so* excited to use them in melee. He talked about it all the time up to and during our next match. We reached a turn where his Kroot were finally in assault range and of course I charged him first with a conscript blob. Buried them in a pile of bodies.
I feel like Tau were meant to replace the dwarf archetype that was left open by the squating of the Squats, but that never ended up happening, becoming the Gundam faction instead.
You should of mentioned after they were tricked by the dark eldar they attack a different eldar faction think they were the same and made all eldar they enemy for the most part
Tbh i don’t mind them being the “good” guys of 40K, but I’d love if they encountered a number of the things that made the Imperium what it is, except the Tau react in a different way. Like what if the Tau suffered an Ai uprising, not to the degree that all of their tech would have to be revamped, but would at least give them some perspective for why the Imperium doesn’t use Ai for their tech
I enjoy the T'au for what they bring to the Warhammer setting. I'm not a "fan" per se, but I do love some classic 'imperium vs tau' storytelling. The T'au def enrich the wh40k setting!
The Tau are a really interesting addition to the 40k universe. They really highlight how comically tragic it is that the most progressive, tolerant and "humane" faction remaining is not humanity, but some small species of aliens that humanity (and the playerbase) despises, kills and makes fun of 😂
As a tau player this makes me happy, and thank u for pointing out how they're actually more American imperialist cus WE LOVE THAT COMBINED ARMS WARFARE BABYYYY nothin like a tiger sharks railguns followed up by everything else's railguns to seal the deal
Hey KrakDuk, I would love to see some of your illustrations in a lore video on the events of the "Drop site massacre" or the "Devastation of Baal", Love your work man! Keep it up
Farsight is a Khorn champion... he's fighting under 8 number, he's red, he's a melee Ta'u warrior (imagine that) and he's killing to stay immortal... something is protecting that little red loving blueberry from slipping back under ethereal control... something... powerful...
It's actually been pretty heavily implied by Dark Crusade's crew that the Kais we see in Dark Crusade is the same as in Fire Warrior. Shas'La is the rank of an ordinary Fire Warrior while Shas'O is the rank of a commander.
*humans 3,000 years ago has super advanced tech but is slowly rotting *necrons are sleeping *tyranids are coming and eating *eldar are trying to not be eaten by slaanesh *Orks are krumping *tau "ha ha wood go burnnnn"
T’au’s desperate attempts to be normal in a universe of cartoon characters is probably my favorite grimdark thing in 40k. From the other end of it, stories about fighting the T’au should feel like the perspective of an Iraqi soldier during Desert Storm - pure demoralized panic as your communications are cut, air superiority is lost, automated drones drop explosives into trenches, mid-level commanders and commissars assassinated to disrupt chain of command and communications between the top and bottom ranks, all barely even SEEING the T’au do it
my experience playing with Tau armies were in Dawn of War 1 Dark Crusade and Soulstorm. it's easy win against other armies, as most of their weapons delete all kinds of infantry. when dealing with heavy armor, they can field Hammerhead Gunships. but there's one limitation... the XV-88 Broadside Battlesuit 2 railguns each and they come in squads of three. they have the best superpower but they move so slowly, that they are not a viable option for offense.
Recon drone is certainly the best drone. I remember fielding two of them in 7th edition to ouflank Kroot blobs into my opponent's deployment zone backline before outflank got nerfed by the 9" anti-deployment bubbles 8th edition introduced.
Check out Tabletop Stronghold for some great cases and terrain! tabletopstronghold.com/k
Ligma
KrakDuk. I find it interesting how their ruling system is literally the “Caste system”.
Basically it’s the system where you are given a role at birth and you stay there. Earth Castes are earth. Simple.
Spanish controlled Mexico for example had this overly complicated caste or “Castas” system where the more white you are the better, but as races intertwine shit gets out of hand. 😂
Um newest faction? 0:10
You know it’s bad when your faction (the leagues of Voltann)is so forgettable that the tau are still being called the newest faction.😅😂🤣
Yyyyyaaaaaaayyyyyy
WEST VIRGINIA REPRESENTATION
WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
OH MY GOLLY GOSH I somehow completely left out my short segment explaining markerlights. Idek how that happened. They're basically just targeting lasers for anyone wondering
It's okay, most people do when they play Tau. My brother always seemed to, and then he switched to Death Guard and never switched back. He's happy, but the smell..dear Throne the smell...
I mean. It's there in the name, sounds self-explanatory. But yeah some people need the clarification.
What they are are the leftover bits you have after building your drones cause there's not enough tops
7:19 But it is more yellow tho.
Bro did you read about the Tau chaos god? They kinda embodied their believe of the Greater Good on a chaos Entity. Also quite funny how the heroes of the Tau are a Xena the Warrior Princess, the only guy who knows how to melee and found a cheat sword and then there's Lord Shas'la Kais who is just an average angry guy with lots of guns and a few chaos blessings.
What I find so interesting about the tau is that they aren't nice because they are good guys but because being nice is actually quite useful.
There is an old saying that prussians wouldn't shoot deserters but catch them and force them back into the army but not because they valued human life but because training soldiers is expensive.
@@lucagerulat307 On a related/unrelated note there’s a super interesting idea in moral philosophy that talks about doing good and altruism achieved through purely selfish motives.
Seems like what the ethereals might be up to.
kinda weird since unmotivated deserters likely wouldn't make good (reliable) soldiers, but i guess they chose that instead of death
@@MintBunHunter deserters aren't necessarily bad soldiers. Desertion would also mostly happen outside of actual combat. In battle you have other things to worry about. But on long marches or the boring time at Barracks (which were basically like prisons) soldiers would try to get away. Most other European nations had them shoot at the time but the Prussians cought them beat them up and send them back showing there is no escaping once you joined the military.
Id argue there's nothing nice about this mindset at all, especially when you compare it to being forced off to war lmao
They are evil, but they are a reasonable, pragmatic and rational evil, which is very refreshing compared to the idiotic and self-destructive evil of the Imperium of Man.
The Tau are like Little Caesars pizza, they taste great when you don’t have an imperial in your ear telling you they’re nasty
taste great you say? W-What are you doing step-Gue'vesa?
It doesn’t even qualify as pizza
I once made a comment on an imperial guard channel’s video about how I like playing against guard as a tau player, since I think both armies are kind of similar in their mix of vehicles and infantry working together.
Let’s just say I got like 15 incredibly long angry paragraphs from people bashing tau and saying “don’t compare guard to your shitty army that’s too scared to do anything but the shooting phase” (also on that point I am rather new and may be wrong but is guard not also like 99% shooting? I don’t think they’re known for having great melee prowess…)
@@marmuhardestboss9197 If you count the Kroot the Tau probably have more melee units then the Guard. Like c'mon. Both are almost strictly shooting armies. Every complaint every levied at Tau can be levied at another faciton.
@@orionknight4803yeah, that’s how I feel about it too, I think people just don’t like tau because they’re new. When the next truly new faction comes out (not counting votann because squats have been around) they’ll get hate too.
Edit: having said this, tau have been around for a while though so maybe it’s not that they’re new, idk people just like to hate on stuff
Space marines who fought in the imperium for centuries after getting sniped by some Random tau fire caste who’s name sounds like something you’d say speaking italian drunk from over the horizon:
Knowing the rail gun it’s more like 100 miles away lol
@ yeah probably. hold on i’m editing this
@@Z5-XB top notch editing 👌🏻 for the angel 🩸
Years of Academy training wasted.- Buzz
It is even more hilarious when you realize space marines do have snipers and one of them even took out an ethereal and a commander in the same battle.
Or that the veterans have energy shields to protect themselves from snipers.
My first introduction to the Tau was the Fire Warrior fps game. Despite that early traumatic experience, I grew to really like them. Always liked the idea of a more "generic" fish-out-of-water sci-fi faction stumbling into the insanity that is 40k and seeing how they cope with it. They don't deserve the hate they get.
hear hear!
we'll win by the power of friendship... and this gun I found!
@@recurvestickerdragonI mean that’s how they keep getting imperial worlds to join them. They’re the only ones in the galaxy who knows to say “please” nicely.
It's a shame that it has inevitably faded out (they had a milennia to grow out of their ignorance about the shitty galaxy they live in) because their naivete has brought many of the funniest moments of 40K lore that contextualize the horror of the Imperium from outsider eyes.
One of my favourites when a fire caste learned a fallen venerable dreadnought he was studying was, not only once a living being strapped to an agonizing machine of war to keep it in a state of near death for milennia, not only older than his entire species, let alone his empire... But also still alive after suffering catastrophic damages that would render a battlesuit pilot red pulp and looking at him with sheer f*cking hatred in his eyes. He was beholding a being incomprehensibly older than himself, and every cell in that Lovecraftian being wanted him dead.
And there was also that time a water caste saw a hive city for the first time, ran the numbers and desperately tried not to sh*t his pants when he realized there were more humans crammed into that hell hole than tau in the whole galaxy.
Then there are servitors which diplomats are forced to politely and very awkwardly ignore. Because, you know, the lunatics they are trying to sweet talk think it's perfectly normal to grab one of their own, jam a computer in their skull and tear him apart to turn him into a living forklift.
Same here! Fire Warrior was my first real introduction to W40k when it came out.
Remember when the tau empire have an existential crisis when a tau commander destroyed a dreadnought and finding out that this dreadnought is over 6000 years older than the tau empire itself. Yeah !
That's how I felt when I found out those turtles from Rocky (1976) were still alive
Ngl, when I was getting into 40k I saw a Poorhammer video of "what faction is for you". They said "do you like Gundam? Then Tau are for you". Well I'm a lifelong Gundam fan... 😂
Tau were for me since they weren’t miserable to paint (I have the painting skill of the average turnip) and aren’t just card carrying members of team evil. The fact that they tend towards shooty over melee just sealed the deal.
Im also a lifelong gundam fan but i despise the tau cus the fans are so annoying with their ego and victim complex about how “iMpEriUm” bad, and them not shutting the f about the blue aliens
@yuimama7022 the irony is absurd
I’ll be honest, the reason they caught my eye in the store as a teenager was their resemblance to Tiberian Sun’s GDI. I knew precisely nothing about Warhammer, I was just like “Big guns? VTOL? TAN? Sign me up!”
Finally a good T'au overview with SLIGHTLY less bias, thank you!
Avatar basically stealing Tau's whole flow depending on the Avatar is just really funny to me
Or just historical alchemical elements.
@@Steel_Penguin to be fair earth, fire, water, and air are a thing in many cultures long before either. Just thought it was a fun joke for the vid tho
@@KrakDuk Yeah it really was funny. Thank you for the information I was just remembering the time I was reading a book and a water caste Tau woman was asking a space marine (I don't remember the chapter) if the emperor would like to see great warriors like him killing innocents like her (Tau diplomacy shenanigans) and the space marine just said yes and crumped her like an orc
There has been a recent turnaround for Tau appreciation lately, and im all here for it. As someone new to 40k, i find the Tau fascinating, and like you said, underrated.
Its nice to see some tau content that isn't overly negative - i think it's really fun to have a faction that is more tech - y, tactical, and doesn't just annihilate everything in their path, because it adds a cool layer of contrast to all of the other factions.
Having a faction that's so different makes them and everyone else stand out more
@@dereckcordova6954 yep! I like the contrast the tau provide. Having a more good leaning faction who’s young is interesting to highlight just how messed up the other factions can be and how they’re all desperately clinging to the past.
Plus I love the look of battle suits and firewarrior armor
I've always wanted a Tau centric video game similar to XCOM were you play as a fire team that is at first made up exclusively of Fire Warriors but you unlock different auxiliaries as the game goes on. So by the end you can use Tau Fire Warriors, Tau mechs, Kroot, Vespids, Gue'vesa and a bunch of other random aliens. I think that would be cool.
As a Guard Player, I LOVE the Tau. Fighting against Xenos factions are some of my favorite games as a guard player. We need to be nice to tau players, cause I rather play games against the Tau, than Space Marines.
As a TAU main the feeling is MUTUAL HELL YEAH BROTHER
@ Hell Yeah!
FOR THE GREATER GOOD!
Edit: Also, if you think that T'au are weebs, then go look at the Aeldari.
Eldar are also much better communist than Tau
Yeah, that too
Just… no….
Unless you think high pony=weeb, that’s complete b.s.
Outside of the gundam/mech influence, the weeb joke is also b.s. for T’au
Yes, inquisitor this one here.
@@hangebza6625they also eat a lot more skittles
See i think the tau as a faction works and could be loved if they were more like a technological advanced UNSC where victory for them is incredibly difficult to achieve and every victory is phyric but won throigh shear brains and stratagey. But unfortunately every single book where they fight the imperium, every single person in the imperium suddenly become the eldar and somehow lose all brain activity as soon as then protagonist factrion appears.
God now i know how eldar fans feel and i feel really bad for them
The ability for the Tau to be the Covenant equivalent with a mix of alien species all united under the goal of survival would be rad as hell. But of course GW would have to make more aliens (GW reaction 🤢) and not make more space marines (GW reaction 😭)
They look like they’re trying to go the Necrontyr route where they solely rely on brains to create tech on par with their rivals but unfortunately are no where near the same level as the Necrons
This is why I just stick to my evil drug addict pirates for my Eldar needs
@@bongibot1104 the thing is, they have plenty of concepts on offer. It’d just be a matter of putting them into production.
Also for the love of fuck give us gue’vesa models! Making the damned things by kitbashing is EXPENSIVE.
Eh, GW already screwed It up, I think it was Weshammer but may have been majorkill, who calculated that from a notable planet with 1 billion tau, if it was even split amoungst the castes, it would have 250 million fire cast soldiers, and in one of the tau codex’s, it shows a squad where a tenth of the tau had battlesuits, which would mean that the tau have 25 million battlesuits on that one planet alone, and the average battlesuit is superior to the average space marine (not counting the X factor of experience) but inferior to the average dreadnought (still not counting that X factor) technologically speaking, mobility speaking, how well armed it is, and range. So the tau battlesuits from that one planet, which is majority earth and fire caste, so there are more battlesuits than what I have already said. Outnumber the entirety of the imperium’s 1 million space marines by 25 to 1. So sadly that isn’t much of an option anymore
With La'Kais one think I like is the power scaling in books vs video games.
In Dawn of War you can actually lose and kill companies, even chapters worth numbers of space marines and in codexes and novelisations they have to say "Well actually, that was just a game. The real numbers were much lower.".
But with "Fire Warrior" book? They just said "The things he did in that game, like soloing a guard regiment, several squads of Space Marines, a Word Bearers warband, with several Daemon Princes and a Greater Daemon? Yeah, it all happened, baby."
we love Blue Marbo
Wait, they make la kais more canon character then O kais?
@@BaranZenonlmao fr. People hate on the book for that, but I actually like that they just went silly mode for this one dude
15:10 kitty: this is still not canon! (I missed TTS)
Lockwarden: "You cannot keep doing this to yourself. We're here for you, Captain General. 😎
Love is a strange thing, dude. But sometimes a break-up is a blessing in disguise."
I’ve always found it interesting that the Tau are the only faction to use lots of unmanned drones. Obviously the Astra Millitarum’s whole thing is throwing hundreds of guardsmen at the enemy, but even the Aeldari don’t use robots (yes, I know wraithguard are a thing, but that’s putting a dead persons soul in a robot, and you could just design a normal robot instead of putting a soul in danger)
they missed the big bad cybernetic revolt(s) so they don't have the prejudice... personally, I think the other races have blown those dangers out of proportion after many millennia of telephone
Hey dude. What a coincidence. Last video i commented about how i love the Tau and would love a video from you about em.
Love ypur stuff. Amazing video. Thanks for your effort❤
I have found that most people going against Tau are ill-prepared for a good old Breacher Team swarm. Aka, the "Cowabunga it is then!" shotgun lads that make the Arbites seem sane and measured by comparison.
@@Rukdug breachers were my first tau kit, they’re very cool!
I forgot which source material this is from but there was a time where they somehow managed to get a venerable dreadnought corpse and when they started tor research they realized that he's been around like twice as long as their entire race and history and it put them in an existential crisis and made them realize how late they actually are
it was in the "Blades of Damocles" book, commander Bravestorm killed a dreadnought and after scanning the interior since the front had ben damaged noticed the age of the marine inside was 6000 years old, basically the age of the tau species, his thoughts were what sort of foe is this or something along those lines.
I just like that they understand if a toaster isn't working, it isn't because you forgot to slather it in holy oil and say the Omnisiah rosary 40 times.
So Shas’la Kais and Shas’o Kais are the same person, the Shas’ part of their name is basically their rank in society. He got a promotion after Fire Warrior and ended up running the Tau faction in Dark Crusade.
"shas" denotes fire caste, "la" is the lowest rank (private), "o" is the highest (commander), and there are at least three ranks in between.
fun fact: "kaís" means "skilled" and it was incredibly funny that that's the only honorific the DoW one earned before making commander instead of something more specific like his peers. It's the equivalent of a space marine captain being called "Adequate-ius"
No, unfortunately not. Dark Crusade is set before Fire Caste in the timeline, so they have to be different soldiers.
Unfortunately the timeline for O'Kais doesnt align when he was revealed to be a student of Puretide. He was most likely ranked a commander before the damocles crusade happened, while La'Kais was a new recruit in the events of fire warrior that are stated to happen around 200 years after the damocles crusade.
@@fenrismaav GW really out here with an opportunity to do some arc-welding and make Kais one really badass dude who had a hell of a first day and eventually became a pretty darn good commander in DoW by just fudging the timelines a bit, and instead they went "Actually they're different people. That way we can give O'Kais the exact same backstory as _every other Tau commander_ because that's _much_ better, right?"
The Puretide thing was cool when it was just Farsight and Shadowsun, it added another layer to their rivalry, the idea that they were once students of the same legend, now taking very different routes. Now it's just like... "Every Shas'O we've ever made a model for and also all the ones we haven't made models for were all in the same class at school."
@@ToaArcan not every commander with a model was a student of Puretide, we had O'Ralai and O'Rmyr.
I find it fitting that there were 3 students to Puretide, as each one represents one of the styles of Tau combat. O'Shova for the montka, O'Shaserra for the kauyon and O'Kais as the monat.
Talking of being the tau being naive, remember when they first saw an imperial titan.....that's when they learned that bigger is always better in the messed up galaxy they live in
didnt they preety much just shoot it with a railgun and it died?
@cerrpik Yeah but they were flabbergasted when they first saw it
"Aun'O, are you seeing this shit? Apparently the square-cube law is more of a square-cube suggestion."
True, they then made their own big mechs
I imagined Tau looking up to see a titan raising up and the titan looks down to see Tau running in circles as they are so scared of the titan.
This man could make a video on space marines eating glue and I'd still watch
I love ranged factions with dedicated melee blockers.
I love less-is-more and blocky tech.
I love Forrest Gump types.
The Tau themselves, now has a Tau goddess, not to mention some Tau are attacking their own allies. which, may cause problems even could cause a Tau civil war, But what do you guys think?
Those guys attacking auxilliares are fire caste from the 4th sphere of expansion. Why they attack? Well, i am not going to tell here the whole story, but basicaly they went into the warp WITHOUT the Gellar field and has observed what has been happening with their allies. Also, they are angry, because some uncorrupted by then auxilliares has started praying to Tau'va (Greater Good in Tau language) and that basically created a goddess and religion from their ideology and that is the reason of being angry (sounds a bit like the Emperor lol)
I’m curious if this is the beginning of a mini horus heresy within the Tau empire.🐱
Im looking forward to that lore wise, a civil war of some kind where the tau split over the divinity of the tau'va and how they feel about auxillaries
I feel like we will have to wait til 40k end times for that plot to go anywhere.
I think 40K writers at Jame Workshop should stop trying to make the tau into the Imperium and that the plot line about how some Tau have become rabidly xenophobic towards non-Tau for creating a Tau Goddess is grim derp nonsense.
You did an amazing job representing my favorite faction
Also for some reason people always make memes about how much the faction is hated yet I can never find someone who actually hates it and has one of the largest reddits in Warhammer, and i find the art style to be just fine in the setting of Warhammer
Of only they'd add skaven....
rat-things join for the best-great hive-good!
Veer-myn from mantic games have such a great style. It makes me sad there aren't skaven in 40k every time I think about them.
@@Lampman. thanks! They’re one of my favorites as well. I see a lot of tau hate, but I think it’s mostly just a meme at this point. It’s easy to call them nerds and that they suck to play against.
There was a minor resurgence of tau hate in killteam lmao. Their team was quite oppressive and I can say from personal experience not too much fun to play against imo.
The Tau as a faction reminds me of the Covenant from Halo, so I think they are pretty cool.
I'll never stop laughing at all the times the Tau tried to get the Orks to buy into their Greater Good routine only to get betrayed every time and wind up being hammered flat. Hilarious.
"Oh, rite, yeah, we'll be yer mates, lemme jus' 'ave a look at dat big shoota yer got..."
Mork would be proud.
later they realized jingling keys is more effective and didn't waste any more time or effort aside from leading them on wild goose chases
Hey KrakDuk! Loved the video! As a big T'au fan, I got into Warhammer 40,000 because I found the T'au so unique compared to the other factions. Their usage of diplomacy, Auxiliary races, and Battlesuits accompanied with high-technology really made me love them. While I don't like how they have become less good through the years, and are now more sketchy, I nonetheless feel that sometimes they are given a really bad rep because of bias.
I am happy to see that is not the case with one of my favorite Warhammer creators :)
"Believe in our destiny and stand united, for in unity will we achieve victory. For the Greater Good!"
New tau player here love your videos and the animation style
There’s too much Tau hate!!! We need more Tau love!
Exactly
Already enough liters of milk, for their fan arts
No…
Filthy xenophile! In the name of the holy God Emperor I deem thee thrice damned, by action, association, and belief, and declare thee Excommunicate Traitoris!
For the greater good
Builder drone looks fed up with his job, I love builder drone
this is the third time _today_ he's had to reset a server because some water caste bureaucrat downloaded scrap code from admec noosphere
Beep boop build for the greater good
@@ghoulbuster1
‘What is my purpose?’
‘You build for the Greater Good.’
‘Oh my God.’
@@recurvestickerdragon Ah he fell for the ‘Hot Vespids in your area’ trick
We’ve all been there
Great video. I like how you mentioned the 4 horsemen. Pestilence is so cool. Like the death guard
This came in perfect time as I started building my tau army yesterday
Great timing! I just started my Tau army
I think the warp storms surrounding them messed with the flow of time, because stone age to space travel with friendly ai in the span of 6000 years is ridiculous. At that rate the dude who discovered fires great grandkid would have a car.
If they were human, sure. But it’s perfectly reasonable that an alien species could develop slower or faster.
This made me think that a Co-op shooter with Malum Caedo and Shas'la kais as the Players would go crazy.
plus marbo
Watching your videos make me happy.
3:13 west virginia mention
never thought I'd see the day we'd get mentioned in anything related to 40k
it's a bit easier now that fallout 76 is fully ensconced in meme culture
@recurvestickerdragon true I guess
My heart leaps for imperial joy when I see a new KrakDuk video ❤
We need a 2 player Warhammer game with shas'la Kais and malum caedo halo 2 style
but kaís is blue Marbo
Bro you are just one of the best WK 40 channels out here by far ❤❤keep it up bro 💪💪💪
Please make a video about the Leagues of Votann🙏. Your art-style is so nice and the way you explain these factions is great, I'd love to see my faction on this channel
I think you are the best 40k tuber right now lol @6:56
I think my favorite part of Tau lore is that they don’t have warp travel yet the Kroot do.
I kind of feel like they didn’t need to make the Tau a somewhat evil faction like the rest, since being a naïve Boy Scouts that doesn’t know the horror they’re up against but still persevering to do what’s right is interesting.🐱
Precisely, how can we say this is the grim dark future if there are no morally good things in universe to compare to
Retcons get ignoted
Great video! However, I have to report you to the inquisition now guardsmen
Just casually glossing over ciaphas cain being the reason the ceasefire came to be ao fast...
Cain is just luck incarnate
Love the Tau and the Guard XD I have some guard in my tau army that wanted to join for... well... the greator good.
They're basically what humanity is in most sci-fi settings.
15:10 poor kitten... I miss tts so much....
We all do. If only the ultimate heresy didn't kill the series COPYRIGHT! DREADED GW
i get anime oooh bbadd but like, pacific rim? gundam but you don't have to care about the people in it? robot walker with 40 missile launchers? you gotta like it A LITTLE BIT right??
For real, this is just the best 40k lore channel
"Are the tau the worst faction?"
They have gundams, so no, that's epic
That sponsor segment with the wizard had ne in stitches, i loved every part of it
I will have no slander against my Blue Pacific Rim fanboy faction. Thank you for coming to my TED talk
“The greater good is coming from my bolter, alien”
The giant psychic pancake space bears never fail to make me laugh
Hot Fuzz has ruined the phrase "The Greater Good" for me lmao
Any time I hear it I involuntarily repeat it.
Angel: "Shut up!"
WHEN DROP TROOPS
I know you TheDropsTroopsGuy
@Slamander_Man Legion Clown, is this really you?
Holy shit this is a new video? I just randomly searched Tau 40k and your video showed up 😂 I thought this video was uploaded a year ago or something
I have a friend who plays Tau reguarly, I play IG, and we regularly battled back in 5th ed. When he bought and built his first Kroot kit, he was *so* excited to use them in melee. He talked about it all the time up to and during our next match. We reached a turn where his Kroot were finally in assault range and of course I charged him first with a conscript blob. Buried them in a pile of bodies.
I feel like Tau were meant to replace the dwarf archetype that was left open by the squating of the Squats, but that never ended up happening, becoming the Gundam faction instead.
I see Krak posted a new Video, I click on video, I GIVE THUMBS UP, I then proceed to watch the video.
You should of mentioned after they were tricked by the dark eldar they attack a different eldar faction think they were the same and made all eldar they enemy for the most part
Which is funny because the Eldar first instigated the Tau's hyperevolution.
@@JoshSweetvale
ooh, is that confirmed in canon? last I heard, it was a theory
Instead of getting the impatience duncecap, I got the I can’t count duncecap.
Of all your lil drawings depicting the various races, your Tau are my fave!
WEST BY GOD MFING VIRGINIA MENTIONED LETS GO I WILL BUY 30 OF THESE CASES
Tbh i don’t mind them being the “good” guys of 40K, but I’d love if they encountered a number of the things that made the Imperium what it is, except the Tau react in a different way. Like what if the Tau suffered an Ai uprising, not to the degree that all of their tech would have to be revamped, but would at least give them some perspective for why the Imperium doesn’t use Ai for their tech
I enjoy the T'au for what they bring to the Warhammer setting. I'm not a "fan" per se, but I do love some classic 'imperium vs tau' storytelling. The T'au def enrich the wh40k setting!
So... Essentialy, the only good thing about Tau is just Farsight. He is the only reason to even consider not hating blue a-holes.
They are the best Race in 40k. Serious guys they are, trust me, 40k can get pretty dark sometimes XD
I'm most impressed that you correctly identified the first horseman of the apocalypse as the Victor, not by adding another one.
Good job
The Tau are a really interesting addition to the 40k universe. They really highlight how comically tragic it is that the most progressive, tolerant and "humane" faction remaining is not humanity, but some small species of aliens that humanity (and the playerbase) despises, kills and makes fun of 😂
The Tau are my favorite faction.
you're popping these videos out like a factory man and still keeping up the quality, good shit keep it going!
As a tau player this makes me happy, and thank u for pointing out how they're actually more American imperialist cus WE LOVE THAT COMBINED ARMS WARFARE BABYYYY nothin like a tiger sharks railguns followed up by everything else's railguns to seal the deal
“Hey let’s fight the Tau today!”
“Why do I hear *Only My Railgun* in the distance?”
5:17 I see KrakDuk has been practicing his hand drawing skills. I can’t wait to see what new hands we will soon see!
tfw using diplomacy, tactics and strategy actually proves to be more useful than just killing everything on sight
It’s why the Imperium and Tau are sometimes strange bedfellows. Case in point the Dark Angels and Surestrike’s shady deal.
I'm starting to think you may be a xeno sympathiser
Great video, I can’t wait for the one on the Carcharodons! SPACE SHARKS! SPACE SHARKS! SPACE SHARKS!
Hey KrakDuk, I would love to see some of your illustrations in a lore video on the events of the "Drop site massacre" or the "Devastation of Baal", Love your work man! Keep it up
Thank you for my hat KrakDuk it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever been given before. Thank you
Another Typical Guard W. Keep up the great videos bro.
Great vid!!! Can’t go wrong with mech suits
The Imperium when the Tau doesnt use the same strategy over and over: 😮
Yes. Yes they are.
Farsight is a Khorn champion... he's fighting under 8 number, he's red, he's a melee Ta'u warrior (imagine that) and he's killing to stay immortal... something is protecting that little red loving blueberry from slipping back under ethereal control... something... powerful...
I think I understand the t’au are the 40k United Nations
It's actually been pretty heavily implied by Dark Crusade's crew that the Kais we see in Dark Crusade is the same as in Fire Warrior. Shas'La is the rank of an ordinary Fire Warrior while Shas'O is the rank of a commander.
I look forward to when you eventually get to the AdMech. Love the toaster groping tech cult in all their body horror level of modifications glory.
The coolest part of the Tau isn’t even the Tau, it’s the Kroots they hire.
So long as their not dark eldar their cool with me.
*humans 3,000 years ago has super advanced tech but is slowly rotting
*necrons are sleeping
*tyranids are coming and eating
*eldar are trying to not be eaten by slaanesh
*Orks are krumping
*tau "ha ha wood go burnnnn"
T’au’s desperate attempts to be normal in a universe of cartoon characters is probably my favorite grimdark thing in 40k.
From the other end of it, stories about fighting the T’au should feel like the perspective of an Iraqi soldier during Desert Storm - pure demoralized panic as your communications are cut, air superiority is lost, automated drones drop explosives into trenches, mid-level commanders and commissars assassinated to disrupt chain of command and communications between the top and bottom ranks, all barely even SEEING the T’au do it
my experience playing with Tau armies were in Dawn of War 1 Dark Crusade and Soulstorm.
it's easy win against other armies, as most of their weapons delete all kinds of infantry.
when dealing with heavy armor, they can field Hammerhead Gunships.
but there's one limitation...
the XV-88 Broadside Battlesuit 2 railguns each and they come in squads of three. they have the best superpower but they move so slowly, that they are not a viable option for offense.
Recon drone is certainly the best drone. I remember fielding two of them in 7th edition to ouflank Kroot blobs into my opponent's deployment zone backline before outflank got nerfed by the 9" anti-deployment bubbles 8th edition introduced.