Most of the great powers that rule in the 41st Millennium are ancient, decaying husks of once-mighty civilisations, sliding into ever-greater ignorance and failure as the vigour and ingenuity that drove them atrophies with time. But in the far reaches of the galaxy, on the eastern fringe of Imperial space, a new power has risen – burning with youthful fire and equipped with advanced technology.
They are the T’au Empire, a beacon of progress and understanding in a violent, uncaring galaxy. They plunge into the darkness with ironclad faith in the Greater Good, offering the open hand of diplomacy to all who would accept it, and the closed fist of annihilation to those who refuse. Here’s everything you need to know if you’re thinking of starting an army of these optimistic expansionists.
New to the world of Warhammer 40,000? This quick-fire primer will get you up to speed on the technologically advanced warrior caste of the T’au Empire – what they are, how they look, and the way they play on the tabletop.
The T’au began like countless other sentient species. They progressed from primitives to herder tribes inhabiting the savannah plains and mountains of their home world. They developed language, tools and – of course – weapons, but what singles their tale out is the speed with which these advances came. The T’au are short-lived by Human standards, but strive towards their goal with a dynamism that sees each generation achieve remarkable progress.
During their early days, the ancestors of the T’au rapidly outpaced their moral growth with their practical and martial development, and disaster inevitably followed. They were saved by the advent of the mysterious Ethereals, who walked calmly out of the night and compelled the leaders of the warring tribes to sit down and agree to a peace where none had before been possible. Legend tells how the Ethereals spoke long with the assembled T’au about the T’au’va, or Greater Good – a shared destiny that would see them rise from certain self-destruction to rule the galaxy.
From that time onward the breakneck pace of T’au advancement became one of their greatest strengths. Guided by the council of Ethereals, the different tribes were arranged and valued by their strengths. This unified drive towards progress saw them establish orbital void-cities, and then push outwards to claim new worlds and systems for their own.
This newly invigorated T’au Empire was split into rigid castes, with each one taking on a vital aspect of the Empire’s survival. The Earth caste build and invent, supplying their burgeoning expansion with the ships and weapons it needs to travel the stars, while the Water caste bargain and mediate with foreign powers and the Air caste pilot their voidcraft.
Most visible to interlopers are the Fire caste, the citizens who form the military mainstay of the T’au Empire. They are professional soldiers, trained and equipped to the highest possible standard before being deployed to wherever their people need them most. The might of the Fire caste maintains the ongoing momentum of T’au colonial expansion and forms the final argument against those who would impede the advance of the Greater Good.
To this end, the central pillars of T’au military doctrine are superior mobility and the application of overwhelming firepower. Not for the Fire caste are the costly last stands, pyrrhic victories, and ghastly meat-grinders favoured by Humanity or the Orks, as their relatively small population would soon struggle to provide reinforcements in wars of attrition as well as garrisons on ever-expanding colonial borders.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Earth caste, T’au technology is superior to that of almost any other they have encountered. Rather than try to compete upon what they view as the most barbaric level of warfare – brute strength – the T’au instead look to weapons, training, and devotion to the Greater Good to stack the odds in their favour. Even the lowest-ranking and untested Fire Warrior takes to the field clad in resilient battle armour, one shoulder guard of which doubles as a formidable anti-ballistic shield. Their pulse firearms employ induction fields to propel particles that break down and create focused plasma blasts that can either be projected over extremely long ranges, or in rapid storms of short-range fire. Elite Fire Warriors earn the right to wear advanced battlesuits, whose strength, mobility, and armaments make them true terrors of the battlefield and the boogeymen that beleaguered aggressors find themselves constantly scanning the skies for.
These battlesuits range from the tight-fitting XV25 Stealth suit, specialised for infiltration and assassination, to the massive XV104 Riptide whose powerful weapons can blast apart entire armies. Most iconic of all are the XV8 Crisis battlesuits, whose incredible versatility and blistering speed earns them a place as the T’au Empire’s premier shock troops – equipping a wide variety of specialised weapons to mow down enemy hordes, shred their vehicles, and snuff out their elite troops.
The T’au believe their war to spread the light of the Greater Good is only just beginning, and with each day that passes, the demand for warriors grows greater, and the soldiers of the Fire caste are stretched thin about the T’au Empire’s borders. Not only do they readily acknowledge this fact, but they also recognise without ego that many aliens possess physical or mental abilities that allow them to serve the Greater Good in ways the T’au themselves cannot.
It is for these reasons that the T’au make widespread use of alien species to supplement their armies, as well as many other arms of their civilisation. Most ubiquitous amongst all these alien auxiliaries are the mercenary Kroot and, to a lesser extent, the insectile Vespid, who offer up a significant number of specialist troops for scouting, ambush, and frontline assault duties.
Even Humans have been integrated into the T’au Empire. Known as Gue’vesa to the T’au, the number of Human auxiliaries incorporated into the Empire is continually growing, and they prove as useful to their new allies as they are hated by the Imperium they have abandoned.
On the tabletop, the T’au Empire have a strong preference for ranged combat, with a heavy focus on units working together for the betterment of all. Many of their units are capable but unexceptional marksmen – on par with ordinary human soldiery – who improve significantly when paired with another allied unit to guide their shots, and allow their comparatively powerful weapons to make short work of enemy troops and armour.
Both the Fire caste and their auxiliary allies also prioritise mobility over resilience and static defences, with the Strike Teams and Breacher Teams that make up the bulk of their infantry often being mounted in fast and well-armoured Devilfish transports. Their spearpoint attacks are then supported by squadrons of Hammerhead grav-tanks and wings of elite battlesuits, who boast some of the strongest weapons available to units in their weight class.
When battle plans call for the kinds of close combat assaults that the T’au find distasteful, they enlist their savage Kroot allies, whose carnivorous appetites make them well-suited for vicious shock assaults. Kroot are at home stalking through dense terrain and throwing themselves into the melee, where their relative lack of staying power is made up for by their skill in close combat and the raw strength of their Krootox cavalry.
Combat Patrol is a game mode perfect for beginners and veterans alike, in which smaller forces clash in fast-paced and balanced games. The T’au Empire are masters of adaptability and approach Combat Patrol with much the same mindset as their full-size battles, with a broad range of units working in concert to deliver fast, overwhelming blows while their army stays mobile enough to control the battlefield.
The Sudden Dawn Cadre takes advantage of the smaller board size of Combat Patrol by deploying a Breacher Team armed with powerful but short-ranged pulse blasters. These troops are then mounted in a Devilfish transport to speed them around the battlefield, while a team of Pathfinders acts as their spotters to ensure the army’s firepower finds its mark.
The Pathfinders also pack a trio of long-ranged rail rifles – deadly sniping weapons that can cut through armour like paper – and can split into two smaller units at the start of the battle to better distribute their spotting and fire support duties. This heavy firepower is backed up by Commander Cloudspear, who can wipe out hordes with her airbursting fragmentation projector just as easily as she bores holes in elite troops with her plasma rifle.
All you need to deploy the Sudden Dawn Cadre is a few dice, a ruler, and the downloadable rules below – the Core Rules show you how to play the game, the Combat Patrol Datasheets provide a balanced army that’s ready to play, and the Combat Patrol Missions give you some thrilling objectives to fight over!
|
|
|
The armies of the T’au Empire take on many colours, typically informed by the colours of their ‘sept’, or home world. In truth, they can take on any armour colours, from stark whites and warm ochres to chilly blues and deep crimsons – so long as their sept markings are uniform. The Fire caste are pragmatic in their use of camouflage, however, and will gladly repaint their gear according to whatever battlefield they find themselves in – with only the sept marker, often seen as colourful stripe patterns on the armour, remaining the same throughout.
This gives you almost limitless freedom to paint lore-appropriate armies in whatever colours you like the most. To get you started with a colour scheme that matches many of the box art miniatures, the Warhammer 40,000 Painting Team have concocted a list of paints to give your T’au the signature white armour that brings out the red sept iconography of the sept of Vior’la – the most warlike and aggressive T’au world.
The smooth armour panels of most T’au miniatures make them excellent canvasses for bright colours, while their Kroot auxiliaries are perfect contrasts with more natural, less saturated tones. Kroot skin is heavily dependent on their diet – often changing to mirror the creatures they’re currently eating – so they can have almost as much colour range as the Fire caste themselves.
For those who want to get their miniatures onto the tabletop as quickly as possible, the Painting Team have also concocted a quick how-to guide using a minimum of paints and simple techniques to get yours Battle Ready.
Once you have a few Combat Patrol games under your belt and you’re ready to go from a mobile reconnaissance team to full-fledged hunter cadre, you might be wondering where you want to go next.
Your first stop is Codex: T’au Empire – the essential companion to the faction, containing plenty of background lore and gorgeously painted miniatures, as well as rules for 38 different units and plenty of different ways to play them. Together with a copy of the Warhammer 40,000 Core Book, you’ll have all of the rules you need to start playing full-size games of Warhammer 40,000.
With a good infantry base from your Combat Patrol, your next port of call should be some of the Empire’s powerful armoured vehicles and elite battlesuits, to add lightning-fast firepower to your defensive lines. Hammerhead Gunships are mobile battle tanks that combine the capable Devilfish chassis with the infamous railgun – an anti-tank weapon of truly awesome power that all others aspire to.
Crisis Battlesuits are the kings of the drop assault and excel at destroying important enemy models, as they can be built as one of three specialised units geared towards defeating vehicles, elite infantry and monsters, and hordes. They will always find a place in your army, and always have something to do on the battlefield. Should the enemy get close to your gun line, throw back their assault with a counter-charge of fearsome Kroot auxiliaries, made up of packs of ravenous Carnivores, hulking Krootox, and snapping Kroot Hounds.
Once you’ve built a solid core, you’ll want to start adding the really big hitters, and few hit quite as hard as the monstrous Riptide Battlesuit. This massive war machine is far more agile than you’d expect a machine of its size to be, and can jet around the battlefield unleashing frightening levels of firepower on anything your Ethereals behold.
Sometimes though, you’ll want to really settle in and defend like the dickens, and there’s a battlesuit for that too. Broadside battlesuits trade their mobility for heavier armour and the kinds of weapons you usually see mounted to vehicles, whether it be heavy rail rifles or high-yield missile pods, and while they don’t hit quite as hard as a Hammerhead tank, you can fit more into an army.
Even the T’au Empire’s legendary heroes take to the field in custom battlesuits, including the renegade Commander Farsight. He’s the only T’au battlesuit specifically geared towards close combat thanks to his enormous Dawn Blade, and leads a breakaway faction of former T’au Empire soldiers that specialise in daring close-range attacks.
On the galactic scale, the T’au Empire are fairly small and confined to the eastern fringes of the galaxy, but the turmoil of the Great Rift and their eager expansions have projected their power further than ever before – and while they often show up as antagonists and side-characters in fiction, they also now have a number of stories they star in.
Shadowsun: The Patient Hunter is a masterful work by Phil Kelly that delves into the mindset of the Fire caste’s greatest living leader, Commander Shadowsun, as she struggles to adapt her patient strategies against the inexorable threat of the Death Guard. To make matters worse, sudden treacheries soon threaten civil war among the usually concrete alliance between the T’au and their allies, and it’s up to Shadowsun to navigate their way around it.
We mentioned Commander Farsight earlier, and you can track his journey from a loyal servant of the Ethereals to the grizzled rogue he is today in a trilogy by Phil Kelly. Farsight charts one of his earliest commands as the planet of Arkunasha is overrun by a seemingly infinite tide of Orks, contrasting the firebrand commander against the structured dogma of his Fire caste superiors.
He then meets the might of the Imperium for the first time in Farsight: Crisis of Faith, where the T’au Empire faces the existential threat of extermination at the hands of the Damocles Crusade. His experiences continue to shape his mindset in Farsight: Empire of Lies, where we finally learn why such a renowned hero broke ties with his Empire, and what kind of person really sits behind the controls of his blood-red battlesuit.
|
|
|
