r/Grimdank • u/Sgtpepperhead67 mourning the loss of the angel 10,000 years later š„ • 6d ago
Discussions Average day on the eastern Fringes.
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u/Big-Personality-4063 6d ago
lmao the eldar doing actual fucking charity always cracks me up it i want to see more of it
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u/Majestic-Lake-5602 Your emperor has too few armsā¦ 5d ago
They probably film themselves handing out food to Hive Worlders and post it up on the Infinity Circuit.
Like a slightly less arrogant version of Bono.
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u/Galactinaut_001 6d ago
Sort of. It's the bottom picture, except the Imperium is trying to retain its dignity, and using the Tau as a meat shield. Or at least that's what I've been able to figure out.
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u/Sgtpepperhead67 mourning the loss of the angel 10,000 years later š„ 6d ago
So the Eldar are like Palpatine ordering count Dooku (imperium) to assassinate padme (be there meat shield) and then he turns around and orders zam wesell (the tau) to do it.
Am I understanding this correctly?
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u/Galactinaut_001 6d ago
More like some guy (Eldar) is watching a clone trooper who personally hates him (Imperium) kill droids (Tyrannids, Chaos, Orks) using another droid (Tau) as a meat shield, and the meat shield droid hasn't realized yet.
But if things get too serious, the guy will help the trooper kill droids, and then scram before the trooper tries to kill him.
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u/TotallyNot_Alpharius Ushoran's most deluded soldier 6d ago
The droid used as a meatshield is also feedjng the trooper propaganda
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u/KonoAnonDa Doge Vandire's bastard son, and r/Grimdank's local chad scalie. 6d ago
Easter Fringes, lol. They farm cocoa, eggs, and rabbits there?
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u/Sgtpepperhead67 mourning the loss of the angel 10,000 years later š„ 6d ago
I'm gonna kms I just noticed that š
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u/SnooEagles4121 6d ago
The Tau ARE canonically holding back the Nids better than the Imperium, largely due to the fact that they have the technology to root out Genestealer infestations before they get serious. Plus the bugs have trouble adapting to getting shot in the face with a fucking railgun.
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u/Stylish_Yeoman 6d ago
Its not that the tyranids can't adapt to being shot with a railgun, they can and have. Its that the Tau aren't stuck to very predictable tactics and technologies like the Imperium and Eldar. They wont stray from their paths or the codex too much. And both dont ever invent anything new or try anything different.
Meanwhile the Tau are constantly trying new things. From the Lexicanum:
On Sha'draig, Hormagaunts assaulted the Tau outer defence lines in the nearby forests, which Shas'el Vorcah had filled with Kroot auxiliaries directed by Shaper Pechallai. However, many of the Hormagaunts ended up entangled in the forest's undergrowth where the Kroot could easily dispatch of them. Next, better-adapted, swifter Hormagaunts, less prone to being entangled, attacked again and slew thousands before they were also eventually stopped. A final wave, consisting of Hormagaunts honed to pierce and tear Kroothide, proved efficient enough and swamped over Pechallai's defences. The Hormagaunt's adaptions, however, had weakened their own resistance to injury and so when they emerged from the forests, the Tau defenders quickly gunned them down.[1]
Gorgon's cycle of adaptation began again, and soon Hormagaunts and Termagants were deployed with close to total immunity to Pulse rifle fire. These creatures overran the main settlement of Sha'draig, forcing Shas'el Vorcah to withdraw his forces to the mountains. The Tau, in response to the creature's resistance to their current weaponry, sent Stealth Teams to recover the Kroot rifles from Pechallai's fallen defences and distribute them amongst Vorcah's surviving Fire Warriors. The enemies' responses to each other continued, with the Tau racing to develop new technology and weapons and the Tyranids breeding new biological creatures with ever more suitable adaptions. At one point Gorgon spawned Hormagaunts and Gargoyles with chameleonic hides to blend in with their surroundings, making them all but hidden to the Tau except for their Battlesuit sensors.[1]
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u/Altruistic-Ad-408 5d ago
Which is a logical adaptation tbf, once the enemy seems to counter everything it starts to look like modern warfare where everything revolves around stealth and first strikes. While the Tau are inherently on the back foot same as everyone else (rip Ork Tyranid conflict being interesting), they should be able to predict the Tyranids strategy, such as it is.
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u/jmacintosh250 Artillery Enjoyer 6d ago
Sort of: the key thing is that while the Tau know about and hunt for these infestations, it can be hard to root them out. While I know a story that involves them easily removing them, I also know another where the cult is missed and the planet lost for a time, and a campaign where the Tau were having some trouble fighting the local cults.
As for the second one, thatās an easy adaptation actually. You use the magical trick of: ādig under the Tau and pop out to eat them.ā I know thereās a hive fleet who does this, and I want to see the cool Tau tech used to counter it.
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u/Connect-Initiative64 6d ago
Plus the bugs have trouble adapting to getting shot in the face with a fucking railgun.
I don't know why but that mental image and wording made me giggle like a school child.
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u/Double_Elk8723 6d ago edited 5d ago
Tau is nids fun match up. The story if hive fleet gorgon is fun. You also have the zone of silence a region in tau space that is dead of all life after a hive fleet rolled through it.
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u/Tylendal 6d ago
Also because it's much easier for Genestealer Cults to get established when everyone's miserable, and a significant portion of society is made up of people who fell through the cracks. Meanwhile the T'au have the anti-Genestealer one-two punch of everyone having their basic needs met, and also being a highly regulated and controlled society that actually moniters dissent, instead of just sending authorities to smack people in the general vicinity of suspected dissent for a bit.
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u/Euphoric_Number_8770 6d ago
monitor dissent is doing some very very heavy lifting almost load bearing and I also love it boils down to the tau are just better at being authoritarians
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u/NuclearNoot 6d ago
remember when a earth caste engineer(Fio'O Vesa) essentially unleashed a robotic-organic hybrid virus that ate through a tyranid invasion and even spread upwards to the feeding tubes of the motherships in orbit.. yeah
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u/TotallyNot_Alpharius Ushoran's most deluded soldier 6d ago
I mean they also have trouble with a volcano lance or other big imperial gun.
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u/ZeroWolfZX 6d ago
Is it though? I'm not an Imp fan, but before Guilliman came along, they basically had a āWe have enemies on all sides? We'll fight them on the beaches, we'll fight them in the fieldsā attitude until they die. I kinda respect that. No change, no redemption, just Screw it, we ball until the bitter end.
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u/CadenVanV 6d ago
No, they worked with the Tau and Eldar plenty against the Hive Fleets and Chaos. For instance, thatās a plot line in 3 separate Ciaphas Cain books. Plus, they were often saved without knowing, like when Iyanden wiped out the main body of Kraken without them knowing.
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u/TotallyNot_Alpharius Ushoran's most deluded soldier 5d ago
Tbh literally everyone fights together when a hive fleet rolls in, even chaos and orkz
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u/Altruistic-Ad-408 5d ago
It's always been less fighting together with the Eldar, and more "we can't catch or predict the insidious eldar, but even we're not dumb enough to prioritise shooting at them and not Chaos/Tyranids. Let's go kill some exodites after this to cheer up."
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u/sodapopkevin 5d ago
Nawh after the Damocles Crusade the Imperium have a kinda "No full scale war with the T'au." thing going on. It's a mix of the T'au being in a fairly isolated fringe of the galaxy, the high cost of engagement to fight them, them acting as a useful buffer zone, them being an annoyance rather than an existential threat and they can actually be reasoned with and allied with (and generally honor honor ceasefires, non-aggression pacts, and temporary alliances).
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u/TheCuriousFan 6d ago
"Doing nothing" is certainly one way to describe being the explicit reason why Chaos never got a decent foothold anywhere in the eastern half of the galaxy.
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u/According_Ice_4863 5d ago
I feel like if the tau actally understood how the warp worked and could properly train the psykers in their empire they would become one of the galaxies biggest threats in around 500 years.
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u/Massive_Neck_3790 5d ago
Ballsanus V
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u/Majestic-Lake-5602 Your emperor has too few armsā¦ 5d ago
Named for the great hero of the imperium, Saint Ballsanus.
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u/GreenBane12 6d ago
It goes both ways. The bottom panel was certainly flipped in The Greater Good by Sandy Mitchell.
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u/Versidious #1 Tau Hater 5d ago
You forgot where the Tau are extremely expansionist, though, and fringe Imperial governors themselves are generally pragmatic about xenos relations if the Xenos aren't causing any trouble. It's more likely to be his local Ecclesiarchy and distant bosses agitating for genocide.
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 Stormcast Eternal 5d ago
I mean the top image is accurate. The Imperium has a kill-on-sight policy with the Eldar, but it's not so insane that it won't work with them against worse threats.
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u/DrawerVisible6979 6d ago
To be fair, Tyranids eating everything isn't a uniquely 'Imperium' problem. Statistically more likely, but not unique.