Tau

Cue hotblood music by JAM Project.

The Tau are a playable race in Warhammer 40k. When first discovered by humanity, the Tau were a barbaric and primitive people. Then their planet was trapped in a warp storm for a few thousand years and they emerged from the other side as a unified species, led by the mysterious Ethereal caste and devoted to the concept of the "Greater Good". The Tau were originally developed because Games Workshop felt their setting needed an optimistic race, making the Tau the least grimdark faction in the game. Recent fluff (or at least Dawn of War fluff, which is of dubious canonicity) has them gleefully arbitrarily sterilising humans that come under the rule of the Tau Empire, and it says something about 40k that despite this they're still the friendliest race in the setting.

They are a technologically advanced race, and have some of the most powerful ranged weaponry in the game. Tau units in general are rather weak in close combat, so they rely on alien auxiliaries such as the Kroot and Vespids who have joined the Tau Empire to bolster their strengths in this area. Fire Warrior veterans and commanders go to war wearing advanced battlesuits, allowing them to field even more firepower. Tau air units are among the best in the game, with aircraft superior to or equal to Imperial Guard equivalents, including a stealth fighter, multipurpose heavy fighter, a superheavy fighter with guns that can one-shot a titan, and their own Titan-equivalent (which is a small starship).

Tau unit designs were somewhat inspired by Asian culture and Japanese mecha. As a result, /tg/ declares the Tau are weeaboo (contrast with the Imperium, a nation ruled by a Divine Emperor with legions of fanatical warriors who believe that glory awaits those who die in battle in his name with officers carrying swords, infantry engaging in fanatical charges, suicide missions considered a proper way to end one's military career, high ranking officers wearing dress uniforms comprable to those from 18th/19th cenutry Europe, and their most powerful weapons are gigantic humanoid mecha). Their devotion to the philosophy of the Greater Good often leads to them being labelled as communists, too. Well that, and their non-belief in money, or ambitious personal self-advancement, coupled with a rigidly directed obsessively planned autocratic civilisation, as opposed to the Imperium, which just has a harshly directed cumbersomely bureaucratic autocratic civilisation.

The Real Reason Why People Hate Tau

Weaboo space communists - not grimdark enough.

Notable Tau

• Faptau
• Shadowsun
• Shlicktau

Gallery

• 

  A Tau Fire Warrior, the basic infantry unit.

• 

  And a smaller one.

• 

  Fire Warriors are :3

• 

  This is what weeaboos actually believe.

• 

  This Battlesuit-clad Tau demonstrates his mastery of Weeaboo Fightan Magic. Also DYNAMIC ENTRY!

• 

  The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer's entry on Tau players.

• 

  Surrender...Never shall the Tau

• Tau are vicious melee fighters, no less able than Space Marines!

  Tau are vicious melee fighters, no less able than Space Marines!

• 

  Yeah, we all know the truth about their "greater good."

• 

  MARKERLIGHTS!

• 

  In spite of being filthy heretical xeno scum, the Tau can really break it down.

• 

  Here we see Tau propaganda meant to entice men with their terrible, blasphemous, and supplely soft skin, smooth curves, perky brea... er... ah... heretical alien bodies.

• 

  An attractive human female defector who for some reason has been equipped with a highly modified commander's battlesuit, perhaps as a devious ploy to compel desertion by the less loyal.

• 

  In hindsight, attempting negotiations with Orks was a bad idea.