Evil Tau!

[RomanCommander]

Hey I was planning on converting up and painting my new tau army in a chaos/evil way. Can tau be corrupted by chaos? What do you think of the idea? What ideas for conversions would you suggest? My army would also be mechanized.

[impending slaughter]

Technically they can't be corrupted by chaos because iirc they have no presence in the warp (and so have no souls as such to be corrupted). However, they might join chaos because they agree with their beliefs such as a break away faction of Tau devoted to hedonism / Slaanesh or something like that. Maybe Fire Warriors who believe themselves superior to the other castes because of their strength and so join with Khorne worshippers, that kind of thing. As long they don't actually have psychic powers or anything like that I wouldn't see a problem with it. Sounds like a cool idea

[dOOHICKY]

What about the Etherals?? Can they be corrupted by Chaos?

Maybe have the Etherals being corrupted and leading the army into chaos worship where they are warped (I am sure they could still be mutated).
Sort of like Death Guard if I remember correctly.
Many of them did not choose to join chaos, but were tricked into it by Typhus... either rot and die.... or rot and serve.

Or was that that they were just tricked into serving Nurgle??

[Zurai]

They CAN be corrupted - they do have a Warp presence, it's just tiny - but generally speaking daemons wouldn't bother because they get such little return on the investment.

[impending slaughter]

What about the Etherals?? Can they be corrupted by Chaos?

I remember reading somewhere that the Imperiums think that Ethereals may have psychic powers and thats how they make the other Tau castes stay so loyal. I'm not sure if this is actually the case but its an idea.

Also there was an article in WD a while back (around UK 280 iirc) about WH adversaries and that had a bit about Chaos Tau in it. Not much though

[Xisor]

Going by the implications of Fire Warrior: Ethereals are nig incorruptable...



Xisor

[Barbarossa]

nigh incorruptible isn't completely uncorruptible

And yes, Tau do have a (small) warp presence. They've just been spared most of what Chaos can do because they're a small empire in a big galaxy, far away from the EoT and the Maelstrom and nasty psykers that could draw the attention of the big 4 to them.

[Sir_Turalyon]

What about the Etherals?? Can they be corrupted by Chaos?

Eighter they already are corrupted or they cannot be corrupted... depens on who is behind their creation.

[Ironhand]

I don't know - Chaos Tau don't seem to make sense, given the available background. "Evil" Tau maybe, depending on what exactly is up with Commander Farsight and his Dawn Blade.

I suppose Chaos "corruption" might be another explanation for Commander Farsight's behavior (if you assume the Dawn Blade is a Chaos artifact).

[Xisor]

That's the trouble: We can't really say 'uncorruptable'[no matter my misspellings... ], as we can't really know if we've tried every method to corrupt them. However, everything *so far* indicates they are far more immune to Chaos than just about anything. Even rocks and worlds are corruptable[or perhaps: mutable, it depends how you view corruption].

Xisor

EDIT: Best Dawnblade theory so far, IMO, is that it's one of the Blades given to Khaine by Vaul to fight the Nightbringer. Thus it in itself may have very little to do with his 'corruption'...

[Bregalad]

Well, there once was a time in Tau history, when a selfdestructing civil war threatened to destroy the whole Tau civilisation. The arrival of the Ethereals stopped that path, and today every Tau fears this evil side within and relies on the Ethereal wisdom to avoid that path.

The badly researched novel "Fire Warrior" and some hints in the new Codex suggest an evil side within Tau society, but these are only meager attempts to rob the Tau of their uniqueness in the 40k universe as the sole uncorrupted race.

If you want that too, go back to the violent past. But it seems to me like creating a "life loving Necron army" or a subtle "high tech Ork army": Maybe possible but

[Asi the Red]

Hey ya'.

A different angle would be to forgo Chaos corruption and just mutate them. They may be (note I say "may be") incorruptible, but they mutate due to harmful radiation like everybody else...

Which might be a good lead in to actual Chaos mutation. A Cadre assigned to a world with high levels of radiation for a short time gets stranded by a engine malfunction. They get mutated by the harmful radiation, the Fio caste can't figure out a preventative, and they turn to the native inhabitants (who are Nurgle associated) for help out of desperation (which is ultimately why anyone turns to Nurgle).

[Zzarchov]

I wouldn't say they are uncorruptable..they just don't have psykers..and don't go in the warp long enough (calculated jumps instead of warp navigation). That just means they are the equivalent to animals and inanimate objects in terms of chaos corruption, and there are Chaos Hounds and Chaos Steeds. Perhaps we shall see some when they start going into the rift near Medusae V..

[Latro_]

I don't think you have to think of chaos as in its normal idea of corruption.

For example. A tzeentch daemon prince could manifest himself as a great etheral and order a detahcment of tau to do his bidding (soul drinker novel styley). Its not always about souls, raw power is one of the chaos thrists.
Of course this leads to modelling options, As the tau get changed and mutated by the DP he spoon feeds them propoganda about how its the next phase of tau evolution or something along those lines.

Like you dont have to actually make them 'evil' to do evil things. Manipulation into thinking what they are doing/becoming is normal and right is very chaosy.

Another idea:
Isolated small exploration force contact a new race on a planent. This race happily declares its loyalty to the tau empire. After a while the tau start to get ill as a disease infects one after the other. In a desperate attempt to cure their ever mutating sickness they ask their new allies if they are aware of this illness mutating their brave warriors.
The race talks of a greate plague that effected their ancestors to which they are now immune thanks to the help of a visiting distant alien race. the new tau allies speak of how infectious the disease is and that they should have no contact with other tau lest they infect them aswell. They also agree to lead the now rotting tau on a quest to find this alien race so they can be cured and return home.

See... manipualtion again. The new race they dscovered are infact Nurgle minions who infected them on purpose with nurgle's goodness, Segregated them from the rest of the tau empire and now are leading them on a quest to find a cure (there is no cure, they are leading them from planet to planet to do their own evil chaos bidding)

again modelling opertunity with this as well.

[Latro_]

Which might be a good lead in to actual Chaos mutation. A Cadre assigned to a world with high levels of radiation for a short time gets stranded by a engine malfunction. They get mutated by the harmful radiation, the Fio caste can't figure out a preventative, and they turn to the native inhabitants (who are Nurgle associated) for help out of desperation (which is ultimately why anyone turns to Nurgle).

lol and i didnt read any posts in this thread before i wrote mine. kinda the same idea.. great minds an all that.

:P

[Pokpoko]

Asi-no offense, but i'd go for the chaos theme.as unlikely as it is it's more realistic than getting a tentacle due to radiation...even in our world

[Asi the Red]

Hey ya'.

All I'm saying is that there are other options than, "We're Chaos Tau, you can tell because we have black and red armor with spikes on it."

Also, yeah, it'd take awhile for "normal" radiation to mutate a whole Cadre, but guess what? The Tau are sending a freekin' invasion to Medusa V to study Warp phenomenon. They may have next to no Warp presence, but I kinda doubt that'll save them if they have to endure prolonged exposure to Warp energies. How do you protect yourself from something like that when you've had no prior experience with it?

[der_Kommissar]

If you wanted 'evil tau' with a bit more humor to it, you could paint them to look like the Irkens from Invader Zim. Great color scheme, cool symbols, funny without being entirely cheesy...

I know this is slightly off the topic of whether Tau could be chaos corruptable or not (My opinion they entirely could be.) but I saw this idea on the internet and thought I should report it.

[Lyinar]

Hmmm... does that mean my insane Necron army with Madboyz rules that I've been wanting to do would be allied with them? They are pretty much run by GIR, after all.

[ss_cherubael]

hmm, there was talk about the FarSight enclave leaning towards Khorne-esq worshipping. And yeah Tau really dont put themselves out there to be messed with so we have no documentation about "EVIL" tau (although in the eyes of the Emperors holy Inquisition the Xenos scum all deserve to die). Also why would chaos waste their time what do they have to gain from taking over one of the smallest empires in the known universe, and put it this way the only reason that the Imperium hasnt destroyed the fledgling Tau empire is because it isnt the threat that chaos or orks or nids are, but if they did become "EVIL" the imperium would have words with them, and very stern ones at that which would probably result in lots a dead tau. but yeah it sounds cool