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stainlesssteellocust · 6 months ago

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What would a Tau psyker-caste be called?

Hear me out it’s a few centuries into the future, not going into details, Imperium is still around but fractured into various successor-states, some of which are ironically much more vital and less held back by Imperial baggage. And the Tau have made advances too.

They’ve spliced human genes into cloned Tau, selectively bred those Tau who reacted most sensitively to ‘mind science’ phenomena, they’ve studied the psy-enhancers used by the Votann. And they’ve got a result! It isn’t perfect, it’s still a work in progress, but that just means weird possible unit variations and all.

One consists of a unit that fights with their minds linked together, and combines their collective brainpower to manifest warp-powers on the field. They’re not individually powerful enough to create battle-useful effects yet, you see, but if there’s one thing you can say about the Tau is that they work together. On tabletop they’d start taking penalties to their psy-powers as the unit took casualties.

Next step up would be for those capable enough to fight independently, leader-models with psy-enhancer drones etc who can join units.

And for for the most powerful and skilled there would be a sort of battlesuit: The Tau tech isn’t as good as the Leagues yet (or even the Imperium with their psycannons and stuff) so they need to use a large chassis to get the full effect. I figure most of these psykers couldn’t get possessed or mutated, between their dim souls and the enhancers being built to shut down when things went wrong. But the suits could end up becoming daemon-engines, so they’re a risk to deploy.

Potentially also a Gue’vesa variant where the machines are mostly there to suppress their powers, but who can overclock to become monstrously strong, but only at great risk.

(I don’t think they do the good old “roll a dice for your power” thing any more but it would be fun if they did because they could have a power modelled after each caste including their own. Fire is a blast, water charms or demoralises enemies, air is a movement or teleportation thing, earth strengthens an ally’s defence. Ethereal inspires allies. Their own…helps units cooperate or has some predictive effect? Maybe? Gue’vesa version can choose another list but at added risk of warp bullshit. Some other Tau think their entire existence is between-caste nonsense, and some have started to understand what the Imperium means when they shriek about tech-heretics and forbidden knowledge)

These guys would have a lot of friction from the other Castes. They have to defend themselves in battle without stepping on Fire Caste toes. The technology has to be made, modified and improved with input from psykers, who end up knowing far more about the techs inner workings than the Earth Caste are happy with, psychic orders and guidance potentially messes with the Ethereals…

I figure they carry no guns, but command specialised drones, which they control with their powers instead of technology to practice and hone their skills. They never deploy or take action without full agreement from the other Castes, and direct Ethereal oversight.

By Tau standards, many are quite insane.

#by tau standards of course #warhammer #warhammer 40k #warhammer 40000 #tau empire #tau auxiliaries

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ask-mortarion-the-death-lord · 2 years ago

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Tau Auxiliaries

since everyone and their mother have ideas on how tau auxiliaries should be handled/expanded, I'll throw in my own two cents on the matter as I do hold a perpetual love for the greyskins.

Personally, i love the tau battlesuits. I'm a real sucker for them, and I have a lot of ideas on expanding just the battlesuits which i'll go over quickly:

"infantry" battlesuits which would include stealth suits but also new strike suits [infantry crisises], demo suits [infantry broadsides] and jet suits [infantry hazard suits]

medium battlesuits which would include crisis suits, broadsides, hazard suits being moved into fast attack as the tau fast attack option, and new spectre suits [medium stealth suits]

large battlesuits which would broadly include the riptide, ghostkeel, and new skyline [hazard large suits] and wavesurge [broadside large suits]

and finally the special twoperson heavy battlesuits which would be the stormsurge for ridonkulus artillery and the stormtide for a more mid to close range approach knight killer

however I'd also like to see expansion on just regular tau infantry before ever expanding on battlesuits, and that would naturally lend itself to expansion of auxiliaries with it. so, first what do I feel the normal tau bois need?

shas'ui team, an elite infantry option that would be like your tau equivalent of a stormtrooper/karskin team. they could also have special rules/upgrades to act as an ethereal bodyguard attachment.

"stealth team", a more weird idea admittedly, based on how in dawn of war dark crusade tau get an early game single unit of an xv-15 stealth suit, canonically the older stealth suit [old game model] before the adoption of the xv-22 [the modern model], to capture immediate points and get ya through the start of a match until ya build a barracks. the stealth team in my mind instead of stealth suits use 'stealth armour' based on the xv-15 makin em an elite non battlesuit tau infantry.

demolition team, tau heavy weapon infantry option.

Which now brings us to the tau auxiliaries themselves. Personally I would have things set up to focus on four main auxilia races to simplify things a bit and try and control the spiral of units on the army list. Namely: kroot, vespid, morallian, and gue'vesa

kroot and vespid are obvious being longterm mainstays, the only units I feel would need to be added being an 'elite'/stronger vespid variant and a single character vespid unit like how the kroot have shapers. a similar pattern I feel would be best applied across other auxilia detachments.

vespid strainlord, a single character vespid unit and the boss of vespid strain leaders. strainlords would be a 'boss' by virtue of having the best planning and organizing skills of a group of strainleaders as opposed to being the strongest, though they would also get the best gear and first pick among the strainleaders for stuff like food usually making them the strongest by proxy of being a strainlord.

vespid sonicshrieks, a special/stronger vespid unit notorious for being exceptionally fast and using special sonic weaponry attuned to their faster then usual wingbeats.

next morallians. we dont have basically anything in the way of knowledge on morallians or what they looklike, outside of the skin of their young being particularly soft and sought after by drukhari and that they're more of a kroot mercenary type of auxiliary. their name alone, morallian deathsworn, brings to my mind a heavy support auxilia option.

morallian deahtsworn, the basic morallian unit. morallians would be big and chunky bois in the classic vein of heavy weapon experts in games everywhere. they would have heavy armour and their bodies would be naturally tough in comparison to their softskinned youth, which also results in them specializing in a ton of hard hitting highly explosive weaponry they can survive but others not so much. their own unique tech would be particularly nasty in that regard not dissimilar to stuff like phosphex or rad weaponry, though the tau tend to disdain applying such tech outside of the most extreme circumstances so most morallians under tau employ keep to more traditional incendiaries or explosives.

morallian oathkeepers, the single character morallian elite. as all commanders in morallian forces regardless of seniority would be required to undergo a series of extensive oaths they get called oathkeepers and their general stubborn bloodimindedness. oathkeepers rise to their position with age their skin having hardened to a truly impressive degree and the countless battlefields they've experienced giving them a distinct edge in experience and wisdom to their youngers.

morallian warmongers, a special morallian unit consisting of morallians not far away from becoming oathkeepers. warmongers would be recklessly eager to prove themselves and thus dive headfirst into the thickest of fighting heavy weapons blasting away and special cqc weapons gripped firmly to crack as many heads as possible.

and finally gue'vesa. the simplest solution is to just offer options to incorporate imperial guard units into a tau army, but frankly that feels like a missed opportunity to generate some wacky hybrid units of imperial and tau tech. niche wise they like their lore would fit into the middle of tau gunline and kroot aggressive melee being the guys ya keep infront of your melee impared fire warriors to add some gunline punch, throw grenades and eat charges but also behind the kroot line letting you charge in your kroot worry free of lacking a shielding unit for your fire warriors. like the kroot they'd also get a bit more toys in the army to work with.

gue'vesa squad. your "gue'la's" and imperial guard infantry equivalent. unlike the imperial guard however your gue'las get a bit more fancy gear and the training to use it ultimately playing like an imperial guard infantry squad got outfitted in tempestus gear by accident. So, they all get caprace armour, and special 'pulselas' guns which are kinda like hotshot lasguns but made with tau tech so ya dont need an oversized powerpack to run it. they are still otherwise an infantry squad though. the trusted bayonet remains on hand despite tau questions to the contrary.

gue'vesa stormtroopers. your elite gue'las or gue'vre as it were either being turncoat stormtrooper regiments or descended from such groups and their practices. well most gue'vre tend to be kept close to home as a nescient imperial governor turncoat to the tau empires sides best tool to keep order and protect their own skin from dangers 'inside the house', many more gue'vre get sent out with tau empire forces as either shows of solidarity or as means of currying favor by winning big battles and 'doing their part for the empire'. gue'vre get all the best shit including special infantry armour designed with tau technological assistance, and access to the experimental weaponry pathfinders use cause like pathfinders gue'vesa are 'dangerously hotheaded/insane' enough to use that stuff. the basic weapon of the gue'vre however would be the 'pulseplas gun' a spin on the standard imperial plasma gun thats been stabilized with tau technological designs increasing its reliability/rate of fire at the cost of making it behave a bit more like your usual tau pulse weapons. Tau earth caste engineers originally wanted to remove the overcharge capability but human project advisors insisted otherwise. in essence, your straight upgrade to the pulselas gun but with the option to overcharge at risk of exploding.

gue'vesa sentinels. well most gue'vesa armour like leman russes, chimeras and even baneblades can be found on gue'vesa homeworlds they tend to be reserved for home defense/reserve use among the gue'vesa. partly for logistical reasons as the tau have perfectly functional often superior armour equivalents to the leman russ and chimera in active service and thus easier to supply for and maintain on campaign, partly for moral and safty concerns as something like a baneblade is good for home moral and too valuable a symbol to risk losing on campaign. sentinels on the other hand are widespread among gue'vesa forces being relatively unique yet easily producible and replaceable by tau logistics well providing unique utility as a speedy gun walker usable by auxilia units. perhaps more importantly however is the unique model of sentinels the tau empire have helped design for gue'vesa use are compatible with many tau battlesuit system upgrades and all tau battlesuit weaponry meaning you can have these things lumbering around with some extra railguns or missile pods or ion blasters or what have you in support.

gue'vesa officer. your single character/hq for gue'vesa. pretty much exactly what it says on the tin being a gue'vesa officer, with the unique function of being able to issue some uniquely human spins on mont'ka or kauyon strategy in the form of 'killing blow order' your gue'vesa equivalent of fix bayonets and 'patient hunter order' your gue'vesa equivalent of suppression fire.

aside from that, some minor auxilia to help get a couple into most catagories. For my taste that would include greet stealthers, a mentioned auxilia race with flyers and vorgh that one auxilia mentioned recently that is lord of war sized and capable of fist fighting em cause it'd be very funny. finally, I think a tau psyker auxilia option would not be remise. not the nicassar mind as they are stressed to be voidbound, but something to cover that whole for the tau without being a tau unit itself. For my money, all i can think of is either an original creation of an auxilia race for that niche or just to throw in gue'vesa psykers as an option.

#warhammer #warhammer40k #warhammer 40k #tau #t'au #tau empire #tau auxiliaries #kroot #vespid #gue'vesa

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