Am I the only one who sees the great potential Tau had that might be wasted with the new codex?

What I mean is that ever since I was introduced to the Tau (Forcibly by my friends so they could have easy wins), I've read all I could and I always thought they were grimdark. My friends thought they should have never been introduced but couldn't read between the lines at all. Not how the race itself was grimdark but the situation they're in. They're a young, bright, caring race in an uncaring and overwhelming universe that hates them. As they expand out wards, they're forced to adapt to harsher and harsher situations and lose part of their "humanity" and compromise their morality. How as they interact with the universe of 40k, they start changing and become more like it. How we go from a young and innocent race and watch it grow, mature, and become corrupt and harsh as the other factions in the setting. Or how ironic that they're more humane then the humans in the setting. I'm talking about the lost of innocence.

And now I have the feeling GW will just throw all this potential out the window and there's nothing that could be done about it.

Howdy.

Just wanted to say that you are not the only one that believes that they have a great potential to grow within this setting. I am not sure the path they will take, I am just hoping they don't try to 180 them or make them the "one" race. Taking them in a darker path can be done I am just hoping it is more of shades of grey. I am sorry to hear that your friends introduced you for the reasons they did but I hope you enjoy being a lil blue dude.

Cheers,
Onicage

Not at all, and I'm pretty sure this is the way they are supposed to be.
There's a lot of potential for exploring a lot of scifi themes with the Tau as the 40K universe is surprisingly well set up for some pretty hard scifi - the beak and tongue in cheek setting lets you take a step bakc and look at how other popular scifi franchises would end, whilst also setting a stage for the bigger questions.

Turns out the Imperium and the AdMech make a lot of sense as the last survivors of a post-apocalyptic/post-singularity society. 1984 had a lot of interesting points that weren't supposed to be taken on the way to Uptopia, but are none the less true if you need to take a shortcut or are willing to put up with something less than perfect. If we ignore anything but the fact that Humanity Must Survive then the Imperium seems to be a stable structure that encourages this.

The Eldar Empire collapsed and the race died out due to lacking any reason to their existence, Humanity is stuck in a state of Limbo and is fighting a holding action, worried as much about what it could do to itself as what the galaxy can throw at it. For the Tau, third times the charm? But they've already embraced a lot of the Imperial philosophy, but when it comes to AI and post-humanism, forewarned is forearmed...

I agree completely that the Tau culture and aesthetic have a great potential within the Grimdark of the 40k universe. While I share your fear of what GW might do to their fluff and style, I am a lot more accepting of change than many Tau "zealots" (for lack of a better word at this time). What I mean is that there are the traditionalists that constantly berate others for wanting adjustments within the Tau War Doctrine. The rumors of the potential "Big" suit have put many of them in an uproar about how the Tau "would never use larger walkers, they use air superiority". I find this mentality silly as any reasonable commander understands that tactics constantly change, and the army's equipment must change also. Further, change in fluff for a game system is only to be expected over time. Authors change. MGMT changes. The fan base grows and older gamers fall away (not all of us!). The Tau were one of my first armies and I will always love my blue fellas, but I take the changes made and roll with them... Personally, I think you are quite astute in seeing that the Tau, a very young race in perspective, have the opportunity to learn without the benefit(curse) of experience. As you suggested, the Eldar, the Necrontyr, Chaos, and the IOM have all displayed many horrible traits and decisions throughout their eons, and the Tau have seen the quick and dirty result of the other races choices. But anyway we will see what we will see... And GW will do what they will do regardless of the the wishes of the fan base. I will gripe occasionally but I love the overall story and universe, and their modeling is generally pretty good (aside from those horrible new Daemons! Ugh, hideous! And not in a good way AFAIAC). Later!

hmmm... the fate of the tau rests in GW's hands.... and i heard their new story-writer is pretty horrible. what was his name, again?

anyways, i think the tau will become much like the protoss from starcraft. we will see the disciples of the greater good fall, and eventually fade away. in the end, there will be new, bold and foolish space samurai-viet-cong-communist believers out there. and the tau will look at them and smile ghoulishly, poking fun out of the foolish young races, until they are gone.

Hopefully, GW will not introduce something like a "Dark Tau" or "Chaos Tau" or anything along those lines as there is potential to do so due to the famous saying that all good things come to an end. I hope they will expand on the alien aspect of the Tau as the race incoperates many alien races into the greater good.

A bad idea would be to expand on the farsight enclaves and bring in a completely new fraction aka, the beginning of the "dark/chaos tau" saga.

in case you forgot, tau are incapable of sensing the warp or using its power. there simply cannot be any such thing as chaos tau. but i fully understand what you meant.

the idea of corrupted tau is fully understandable. weren't there some tau who somehow disobeyed the law of the tau imperium and so happened to get on edge (sorry if i said something wrong, fluff-wise or grammar-wise.) with their superiors? off to lexicanum it is!

ah, i found out i had stumbled upon this:

I doubt they'd introduce something like that. It would mean an entirely new codex with new units models etc. GW's efforts lean more toward the armies that make them lots of money, like SM. That's why there are so many different Codeces for them.

Tau doesn't get much love. We've had to wait 7 years just for an update on our regular codex. Our army is still pretty new to the 40kverse and the Farsight enclave doesn't have the depth of character to handle a full split into it's own Codex. If it had one or two unique units it could make it into a White Dwarf Release, but right now it is basically just a Unique Character's special rules.

In time, perhaps, our beloved Tau will grow enough to split into two seperate armies, but as it is, we barely have enough for one codex.

I really loved the small bit of tau back drop into the world of 40k. The Tau, to say the least...are a bit different than the other races in regards to being aggressive. They do, however, have an arrogance about the "greater good" I think. It's the Tau way or the high way it seems, but in a universe filled chaos war deamons and highly armored zealots... I can dig it.

I really love the mystery behind farsight and his split from the larger empire, I kinda view him as a a rebel with a cause. ( I hope it's a good one ) Being unorthodox to a collective system is something that I love... Very rare in the world of 40k. I hope they do some good work on his section in the new codex... We are getting a new codex right? just my 2 cents!

did someone mention a new codex?... why is the world suddenly shaking so violently? or is it me? maybe I just need to find the patience to wait... that is a bit too difficult...

When I play people that are very well versed in the back drop of 40k they go into great detail about chaos and the space marines, but little I ever talked about when it comes to Tau. I would say 50% of the players I come across pretend Tau don't exist

Probably the same as the 40K galaxy then. Why would a Guardsman defending the Cadian Gate care about some upstart blueskins on the otherside of the galaxy? They aren't a threat to the 40K galaxy yet as they stay in Tauspace unable to move very far or fast.

Except our little rebel, commander Farsight. Other than that, tau can, according to the fluff, only fight tyranids. or... actually, SM and guarsm... no, they would have to defeat farsight and his men first. Damn it, Farsight, you broke our chance to fight the imperium of man!

Because any alien, anywhere, is a threat to the Imperium of Man. All aliens are perfidious, vile creatures who desire nothing more than dominion over the Emperor's Flock.

And it is the alien that appears most reasonable, most innocuous, that is the worst. For the vileness of the tyranids, or the barbarity of the orks, or the antipathy of the eldar, are all self-evident. It is the alien who cloaks himself in your words, who promises peace and cooperation, who must be uncompromisingly purged.

+++ THOUGHT OF THE DAY: An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded. +++

What the warp? Why is this here? Are the lapdogs of the imperium even able to go to tau space? aren't a certain farsight enclave stopping them? even though orks are bogging the farsight enclsave down, would not the imperium attempt to obliberate them?

I think 'right now' in the fluff, Farsight is pretty bogged down with an Ork problem...

Anyway, going by their blurb in the 6th Ed Rulebook, don't expect any real change to the Tau as they're presented now except in the details. We're used to a relatively stable fluff for Tau as they aren't really as covered by so many authors like Marines or IG, so there's less room for contradiction. Bear in mind that as with most things in 40k, the Tau are set up to allow for different interpretations of them--you have septs with hot blooded fanatic Tau, septs with cool-headed reasonable Tau, and so on. Just like with Marines, you can have them honorable knights or bloodthirsty killers. GW deliberately does this sort of thing to let players make up their own backstories and such, so regardless of what happens with the new codex you can still find an interpretation you'll like.

I imagine some people will be squirming in their seats when the new codex pulls out units and fluff never mentioned before, but with the constantly evolving (or self-contradictory, if you're more cynical) nature of the 40k universe, eh, best to accept we're at least lucky enough that GW gives the Tau more love than say the SoB.

All true of course, but my point is that whilst the Imperium of Man knows about the Tau, most common troopers wouldn't. To most I assume they'd be a rumour.

heh, the SoB... Well, I can agree to THAT.

my mistake for not knowing that.

Well, even though the Imperium is big, warp travel is (relatively) very, very, very fast. Who care if every now and again a fleet show up 500 years late? It's still orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light. My larger point being: the size of the Imperium, and their relatively fast travel, mean that troops can be mustered from far afield. Naturally, many troops are drawn from in or near the area of conflict (Brimlock Dragoons, for instance), but the Imperial Guard is use to going to far off places to fight for the Imperium.

On a semi-related note: keep in mind that the Tau Empire is a sphere expanding in three-dimensions. Even if the Damocles Gulf is the most well known front between Empire and Imperium, there are undoubtedly other flashpoints.

It'll be interesting to see if the Jericho Gate from Deathwatch is brought up, a warp portal of alien origin that links the eastern fringe to the Calixis sector, on the north western edge of the Imperium, a stone throw away from the Eye of Terror.