In honour of the imminent new T’au Empire Codex, which will be available to pre-order from Saturday, this week’s episode of Loremasters on Warhammer+ is shining a markerlight on those technical marvels of the Earth Caste – the battlesuits.
Battlesuits fulfil all manner of tactical roles in a T’au Hunter Cadre. From covert ops in the compact XV25 Stealth Battlesuits to the punishing heavy fire support provided by the XV104 Riptide, there truly is a battlesuit for every occasion.
Of course, the T’au Empire doesn’t have a monopoly on bipedal warmachines. The Imperium fields its own set of swanky combat walkers, known as Dreadnoughts. Unfortunately, the one question that Loremasters won’t be answering is how this stalwart mainstay of Space Marine armies stack up against the battlesuits of the T’au.
Warhammer Community, however, is here to help, and we’ve come up with a list of reasons that T’au battlesuits are demonstrably better than Dreadnoughts.*
Battlesuits Have a Plethora of Weapon Choices
The Imperium favours tried and tested technology – and while Redemptors can choose between the (admittedly excellent) plasma incinerator or gatling cannon, the Earth Caste have invented enough guns to turn a battlesuit into a fusion-powered Swiss army knife on legs.
Seriously, have you seen all the cool stuff a Crisis Battlesuit can equip? Plasma rifles, flamers, cyclic ion blasters, burst cannons, missile pods – and that’s before getting into the advanced prototypes on offer.
They Hunt in Packs
As Yvraine and Guilliman demonstrate, friendship is the most powerful force in the galaxy. The T’au understand this as well as anyone, which is why they pursue diplomacy while the Imperium tends only to pursue Exterminatus.
Battlesuits come in teams, and they can bring along a few more drone pals for the ride. By contrast, Dreadnoughts are lonely souls lacking the magic of teamwork. No wonder they spend most of their time asleep in a darkened fortress monastery warehouse.
They Can Fly
Dreadnoughts may be tough as nails, but a walking coffin was never going to be very aerodynamic. The Blood Angels experimented with assault packs on their Dreadnoughts during the Horus Heresy, but that particular STC appears to be lost to the ages.
The T’au, on the other hand, understand that layers of ceramite are less important than the sheer joy of flight. Even the gigantic XV104 Riptide boasts a booster system to soar around the battlefield, avoiding enemy fire and delivering surgical strikes.
You Don’t Need to Be Dead
Probably the most significant point in favour of the T’au’s walkers is that you don’t need to be near-dead to stomp around in one. Battlesuit pilots are promoted from veteran Fire Warriors who pass their Trial by Fire – assuming they’re not as stubborn as Sub-commander Darkstrider, anyway.
Being interred in a Dreadnought is a bit more traumatic, and while there’s something undeniably hardcore about the maxim “Only In Death Does Duty End”, we err on the side of keeping all our innards intact when driving cool robots.**
They Don’t Sully Themselves with Hand-to-Hand Combat
Throughout the sept worlds of the T’au Empire, the Greater Good promotes an enlightened society, one which disdains close-quarters brutality in favour of spoken words, clever tactics, and absolutely massive guns. Even when the enemy charges into punching range, battlesuits can keep on blasting.
This civilised approach does have one unfortunate side effect – Dreadnoughts will inevitably obliterate their T’au counterparts in hand-to-hand. Some would say that’s just the price you pay for flying a cool gun robot.***
Of course, there’s much more to this week’s Warhammer+ offerings. You can watch the Tarantulos Brood and Darkoath Savagers tear lumps out of each other in a Warcry Battle Report, and check out the latest episode of Deep Strike, which is focused on Hammer and Bolter – the Warhammer TV presenters revisit some of the coolest moments and easter eggs from the last three episodes, while the cast and crew discuss the creative process.
You can also dig into the lore of the Farsight Enclaves and catch up on White Dwarf issues 389, 390, and 391, thanks to the Warhammer Vault.
Let us know your opinions on the great battlesuit vs Dreadnought debate over on the Warhammer Community Twitter and Warhammer 40,000 Facebook page, and make sure you’re up to date with all upcoming developments in bipedal wargear by signing up for the Warhammer Community newsletter.
* Sponsored by the Polemic Department for Advancing the Greater Good.
** What are those slits in the sarcophagus even for?
*** Aside from Commander Farsight, but the Ethereals assure us he doesn’t count.