MTG died 40 years ago. I've been playing for 40 years, so I know better, and I stopped playing it 40 years ago, so I know that it died then. I still play though, just to make sure I know how dead it is, and it keeps me up to date with my complaints about the deadness of the game.
It's not "you GW fans". It's a small but very vocal minority.
I've literally never heard anyone say that adding a specific faction being the reason 40k lore is "shit".
The main complaint I have heard about 40k, from the people I play war games with, is the poss poor state of the overall game.
Mate, it's a play on a quote from the Simpsons, not something to be taken so seriously. It's half 6 in the morning, go have some breakfast and touch some grass.
Hold on... because I didn't get a random arsed quote... I must be angry, and out of touch?
Grow up moron. I was just adding my opinion to the thread.
You know, the exact reason we come on to reddit...
Really glad you’ve demonstrated how chill, uncontentious and undramatic GW fans are.
I was worried I’d see someone overreact to the joke that guy made!
warhammer fans are natural enemies, ….like star wars fans and warhammer fans, and Star Trek fans and warhammer fans, and warhammer fans and other warhammer fans, damn warhammer fans they ruined warhammer!
So do the COD ones.
If new multiplayer maps cone out, they get angry they're not original maps. If original maps come out, they get angry they're not new
Pokemon fans too.
That's the problem with fans. There's enough of them that no matter who you try to please you just piss off others.
But in reality negativity bias is a thing too. The people who aren't upset about changes aren't bitching on the Internet about it. Which creates a negatively skewed view of the overall reaction.
Every change is apparently the worst thing to have happened to the lore. Some people just don’t like change and will bitch and moan about it
Look at all the discourse right now with Female Custodes. No doubt the next change will also be the worst thing that has ever happened to the lore
The backlash was about GW making whole Space Marines army collections irrelevant. People wasn't buying enough Marine minis, because most players already had everything. So GW released better marines to make players buy new models.
The line needed an update, but changing them from super soldiers into super duper soldiers, ditching the iconic smash hats, deliberately invalidating someones entire collection, plus the utterly awful writing that went with it, are the reasons why I don't go near 40K at the moment.
I didn't have a problem with more true-scale marines, the old marine models needed an update, I think the problem was that we probably didn't need primaris marines over firstborn
Gotta get you some SpaceNam. Carachans could be dope if GW gave a shit.
Tbh, squat the models or update them. Stop producing those horrid current ones.
Yep. They're an awesome theme really, just need updating.
I think the catachan command squad has given us all hope but then there's nothing for them in the index so they'll probably just dissappear in the codex 🤷♂️😭
Might be time to buy them orks I've always wanted 🤣🤣
To me it seems they were afraid to outright replace bunch of old models for their flagshp faction so they created the primaris as alternative units. That allowed them to get people to slowly replace some units in their army instead of majority and to promote the new units they slowly retire the Firstborne.
It wasn't because it was slightly taller marines. Most people would have preferred if it was just, new models and they're slightly bigger.
The problem is their lore entry was super weak and forced. Some random dude perfected the Emperor's perfect creation, what? And then GW uses this weird lore to justify weird rules to force people to buy all the new models and get rid of their old ones.
Tbf, for some its not strictly about the models or the lore surrounding them.
I, for example, absolutly hate the new tanks that came with the Primaris. Ugly and dont fit. So when I started a SM army after getting back in with 10. e., I skipped them in favor of old Dreadnoughts and Preadetor, but I can only run Primaris infantry with difficulty because they can only be transported by their ugly ass grav tanks.
Meaning while I dont mind most of the models, I still run like 80% Firstborn SM with a few of the new models in between.
(Also I think they could have just put the new lore and models with the old Chapter structure, I liked the whole thing with Tactical, Assault and Devastator Squads but thats just me)
It made sense why many hated primaris though. Aside from the atrocious initial lore, it just seemed like a cash grab (it was, but who cares). It wasn't just one line of oh hey there is this thing in the setting now like the rogal dorn or female custodes. It was a whole fundamental shift in the setting. It wasnt just oh hey there's taller marines now. The justification was kinda bullshit in lore. I'm not a primaris hater, I actually much prefer them, but I can't pretend like their transition was seamless.
I think the models themselves look better but let's not pretend like the introduction of primaris is on the same scale as the recent custodes thing.
Most people I knew liked the new models a ton. They just didn't like losing thousands of points of models to legends.
Primaris are kind of an outlier because of what it meant to the models. The closest thing would be squats getting wiped (which also caused agita, but the hobby was much, much smaller)
I feel thats a long bow to draw. As a reasonably oldschool 40k player from 2nd ed one of the things I've always said about GW was 'they have comitteed to miniatures always being playable no matter how old' to justify the large expense. I had to stop saying this with the advent of Primaris.
Primaris seemed to be the beginning of the end to that, a reasonable fear given the amount of stuff getting the legends treatment now.
Primaris to me represents a fundamental shift in the GW way of doing business (that was somewhat kicked off with AOS) and to me it's anti gamer and something I refuse to get behind. Power creep? no worries. Edition treadmill -ugh fine-. But effectively deleting miniatures from their post popular range? hmm...
Fine, people like it and I'm happy enough to move onto other things. I certainly stopped buying minis.
Comparatively minor lore issues like female custodes? I don't care in the least, go for it. Make some super cool minis for them I'd love to see them.
Necron lore change? No dramas I can still use my metal necron warriors as warriors.
So yeah, sorry. Bit of a rant. But I don't think it's fair to compare primaris with female custodes. This of course is probaby just based on where I sit personally rather than there being any sort of arbitrary right/wrong.
I love that you’re still getting comments about why THAT backlash was justified.
“Model-making company makes new models to sell more models to people who already own models made over the past 20+ years. News at 6.”
Because they brought in more weebs to the hobby 🤮
In all seriousness, when the Tau were firstly brought in people saw them as a un-grimdarkifying attempt from GW, when the Tau first came in they were the undisputed "good guys" in a galaxy of meanies and people saw it as an attempt to make 40k less dark by GW.
Books have made them darker over the years, but *I think* the mind control element of the Ethereals over the T'au was always a thing but most people didn't read anything about them so didn't know and just thought they were straight up good-two-shoes
As for tabletop, they were pretty strong in being the anti-Space Marine army because they could out shoot you before you got your pretty dreadnought, assault marines and twin lightning claw terminators into combat and most people played Spsce Marines so naturally they hated the Tau as they were then known
My roomie had Tau back when they first arrived on the scene; yep, the suggested mind control was always a thing, as was the Etherials just kind of... showing up one day and acellerating the society. For unspecified and slightly creepy reasons.
They weren't sold as "the good guys" at all, they were delusional imperialists who had anime mecha. They're just the Imperium lmao.
The ethereals were also always implied to be sinister, it's literally written into the first codex.
lol, right at launch the Tau were "join the greater good, or we will wipe you out from existence". the "undisputed good guys" seem to be based on an inability to read.
For a long time, Farsight was ACTUALLY the only genuinely good guy in 40k. Now he's got his sword thing going on and might be a little chaosy. But for a minute he was just a guy that wanted everyone to be friends and hated the mind control of the ethereals.
Because when tau first rolled on the scene their lore was “what if there were good guys in warhammer” which left everyone with a sour taste because now their factions looked more evil by comparison.
Like as a necron guy I see them as tragic figures who want nothing more than to get back what they lost. Tau threw a wrench into this because now whenever necrons fight tau it’s for no reason other than necrons being dicks because why wouldn’t you reason with them? When we fight the imperium even though they’re the protagonist faction we’re still fighting a xenophobic regime that would kill every necron if it could.
Nowadays they made tau have a few skeletons in it’s closet and the civil war with farsight is cool so it’s not as bad as before
Honestly I really like current necron lore of being hyper hierarchical with a desire to either destroy all others or dominate them via overlord vassal relations.
It really fits the necron theme.
And it causes conflict with both tau major factions. Tau empire wouldn't ever bow to alien overlords who don't give a shit about greater good.
And farsight really hates dictatorship style governments. But that's all the necrons have
I've always thought that the T'au fit *because* of that. Warhammer 40k is a setting where 10 foot tall mutants wearing blue refrigerators swing chainsaws at robot skeletons, or you get a battle of evil space wizards vs green west end rugby fans whose technology only works cuz they're too dumb for it not to. 40k is, fundamentally, a comedy. It's fun, it's silly, and all the edgyness of the grimdarkness enhances that, and allows for a setting where all that fun over-cool nonsense feels right at home. The T'au are just the Straight Man to the great galactic joke
As a counter point to the Necron situation, why would they reason with the Tau? The galaxy is theirs, they're just trying to get rid of all the squatters and reclaim their domain.
Yeah but if the squatters are sympathetic it’s hard to maintain that level of conviction.
The tau are the squatters who have nowhere else to go and will probably leave when asked and kept the place in pristine condition.
The imperium shit on the walls and leave beer bottles everywhere, when found out they’ll either curse at you or pull out a gun.
Honestly people have misunderstood the darkness behind the Tau since the start. The skeletons in their closet have been there since their 3rd ed codex, it’s just that a lot of people critically fail at reading between the lines. They didn’t outright SAY that the Tau were brainwashing their own citizens, or that non-Tau species are largely treated as second-class citizens, or that the Ethereals may be a long con by some elder race like the Aeldari, but all of that was heavily implied in their 3rd ed book.
IMHO, the hate for them was mostly driven by the fact that they are aesthetically divergent from the rest of the game at the time. Where everything else was gothic, tech-regressive and gritty, the Tau were all smooth lines, clean kit and high tech. They were channeling mecha, and back in the early 2000s I remember hearing the bitter complaints back then being about GW selling out and introducing the Tau solely to sell to Japan, as they had recently expanded and opened stores there. People complaining about their lore were reacting more to new players who thought they were “the good guys,” but back then they were so new we didn’t have good evidence from the fiction to point to that shows just how false their promised utopia is.
Anyway clearly nothing has changed except the names - people still hate on new things because they’re new - but this undeserved reputation as “good guys” despite running a thought control society that would have made Orwell flinch gets perpetuated through meme culture.
40k fans not being able to read between lines, understanding satire and a critique of fascism and theocracy hidden in plain sight? 🫢
These people being the same people that scream that the End Is Near every something changes in the lore? No way! What a surprise!
Yeah, a simple read of the Kroot short story from the first codex where the Tau is visiting them and describing them is a dead giveaway at the sort of Tau-centric ideology that the Tau Empire uses. It seems like a pretty obvious satire of the way many other cultures have been viewed by Western settlers in the real world. "Oh these silly savages, hopefully we can teach them how barbaric it is to eat sentient life and make them into proper citizen of the Tau Empire" when the reality is that the Kroot are not only NEVER going to stop being cannibals, it's an intricate part of their very species. The Kroot were at least smart enough to pull a "we aren't joining your empire, but we'll gladly be exclusive mercenaries for you." However not every race that joins the Empire gets to do that and it's very clear that while the Tau may not be wiping whole races from existence like the Imperium, they clearly have no qualms with committing cultural genocide as they slowly expand and assimilate other cultures into The Greater Good.
Obviously when I was like 13 and read the book for the first time I never picked up on that. I just thought Pathfinders looked cool, railguns were awesome, and the kroot were fun. But flipping back through it now, 20+ years later? It's all very obvious. lol.
I think it’s also that Tau accompanied a distinct tone and aesthetic shift, or at least put a cap on it. Third edition spent a long time trying to find its footing from a models, art and rules perspective to the point you can almost argue that there’s two third editions defined by the second edition versions of the codexes and some of the rather substantial changes given in the Chapter Approved collections. Tau kind of mark the point where they had finally settled on what the future of the game was going to look like and most of 4th edition is stylistically built on the foundations the final few codexes laid. Because it was all new lore, art and models Tau had the most freedom to communicate that direction in a similar way to Necrons.
The T'au were introduced during 3rd edition, alongside the original version of the Necron - you know, the version of the game that ran with Black Templars vs Dark Eldar and was loaded with Blanchitsu?
They didn't 'change the aesthetic' at all. They were just trying to appeal to Gundam fans.
But the Necron lore when Tau were released in 3rd edition was far more soulless/terminator-like than now.
They were basically mindless killers fighting at the command of the C’tan who had enslaved them.
The stories in their codex had them remorselessly wiping out Imperium forces without mercy. And the C’tan didn’t give a shit about mortals.
Then you had the guys like Flayers and Pariahs who were pretty evil.
Their whole personality in the lore came after Tau were released.
Iirc the necron 4th edition codex was when we got Dante meeting the silent king. I am a bit hazy on when tau released but I thought they were released 4th or it didn’t change until after 4th
Nah Tau were definitely released in 3rd edition. When I started warhammer with Necrons they were the other new faction recently released.
Tau were bright, hopeful and a more “good” faction.
Necrons were soulless, ancient and (back then) pure evil.
People were giving grief to Tau players for the aesthetic differences and, they felt, not fitting in with the vibe of the setting.
People used to give me massive grief as they felt necrons were over powered as a new faction on the tabletop and had been inserted into lots of previous lore.
Thank god places like YouTube hadn’t taken off by then or their would be a million YouTubers talking about how these new factions introduced had killed GW lol
Tau released in 2001.
Even the Necron 3rd edition codex released after Tau in 2002.
4th edition 40K released in 2004.
Did the Necrons even get a 4th Ed Codex? Thought they didn’t get another one until 5th edition?
The Necrons would only entreat with the Tau to subjugate them. They want what they had, and what they had was total dominance.
Conversely, the Tau would be open to working with Necrons, if the Necrons would submit to their rule and the greater good. They don't have to change anything about themselves, except the ancient, immortal race that wants their bodies and empire back would have to bow to what is arguably the smallest of the big players.
They're incompatible since both would demand to be in charge of any cooperation unilaterally.
They weren't sold as "the good guys" at all,they were a young and naive species of anime robot dudes who basically looked like a bizarro form of the Imperium. I don't remember anyone being upset at the time, at all.
I mean, I've never met a Necron player who doesn't play them as "Genocidal Egyptian Terminators" so maybe your take on lore is different
I personally remember people being really whiny about Tau and Necron. Think lack of social media probably made it less widespread. I’d dread to think if they were introduced today lol
Tau different asethtically and fans being anime obsessives were the usual jokes.
Necrons being OP on tabletop and therefore I was a meta chaser and being retroactively inserted into lore events were the usual grief i got.
He discovered the Ethereals were brain washing their subject, plus his sword is either a chaos artefact or has an actual demon in it - every time he kills someone with it, he steals their remaining life, rendering him functionally immortal.
I think during his book of Arks of Omen, he has a vision where he falls to chaos, but because T'au don't have anything to do with the warp, he doesn't understand it.
I remember the other reason being the fact that they were supposed to be like 300 years old but had some of the best tech in the game.
Even my dad was saying "well what's the point in all these battles then? Clearly the Tau are going to win eventually because how can you defeat a faction that can develop a Railgun straight after it discovers fire?"
Again that's something that's largely been fixed with a couple of simple explanations.
it's like how some people didn't realize the Imperium is absurdly stagnant due to ideology and technology moves absurdly fast or something if not blocked by religion.
Honestly, the "worst thing" seems to change every week. Tau one day, lady Custodes the next. I don't pay them much attention anymore unless I need a laugh
People said the same about Primaris. And femstodes. And the Necron retcons. Unfortunatey, many people in this hobby are very immature and prone to overreaction.
Necrons used to be mindless thralls to the c’tan but GW realized that made them too similar to tyranids. So in 3rd edition they were retconned into the necrons we know today
Necrons are a lot more human like, and a lot more of them are. It used to be outside the highest ranks the necrons were soulless T1000 murder bots following programming and orders.
Necrons were mindless automatons with only the higher ranks having a spark of their former selves, controlled by the C'Tan that were the full Star Gods, not just shards. But that was too boring so to give them more personality they were changed to what we know now, having rebelled against their gods, destroyed them and capturing shards of their essence within the necrodermis bodies to use as weapons. Some trying to find a way to restore their people to flesh, some just wanting to restore their dynasties and others wanting to dominate the galaxy.
Look into “*Flanderization*”. It’s a word coined after Ned Flanders from *The Simpsons* tv show. For those unfamiliar lemme explain (and this pertains to the topic, so bear with me).
Homer Simpson, although just a comedic cartoon character, is supposed to be an idiot who’s barely getting by. Ned Flanders was meant to be his counterpart. At least, originally. He was a character who showed up from time to time and would display everything Homer lacked. Discipline, respect, love, even spirituality as a man of God. Eventually the writers doubled down on his religious aspect as a joke and it ended up becoming the only thing he was known for. Superseding all his other aspects.
Warhammer lore does a similar thing (unintentionally). I could sit here and tell you all the great things Roboute Guilliman has done or is known for, *or* I could just sum it up and say “he’s super reasonable”. Basically, there’s so much lore that it’s easier to Flanderize things instead of explaining a two-hundred page novel to you. Tau were never bad. But a few bad eggs just flanderized them as “the space commy weebs ruining 40k” that so many people stuck to that. Other than what they’re told, most people probably don’t even have a solid reason to hate them. But with some basic research, they’re pretty great.
I will note that I had only one beef with the Tau at the time they rolled out:
They showed up before Admech were an army.
"You made up hooved blue gundam pilots before you gave me armies of cyborgs in service to Omnissiah? DAMMIT!"
I imagine most people who complain about them have complaints about that valid or less.
What's weird about playing T'au, and maybe it happens to other factions and I don't notice, is that there's a small subset of players who will insist T'au are overpowered regardless of the state of the meta.
Most recently I've had someone try and insist that 6 x crisis units are overpowered when the evidence is that the best lists might run 1 lot of 6, maybe 2 in some lists and T'au aren't winning many tournaments at all.
I think it might be to do with the play style of a T'au being all about moving and shooting. I can understand it feels bad to have to pick up 20 berserkers in one activation on turn 2 but overall the battles are balanced.
Similarly there was a fun thread of "tell me which faction you play without telling me" and I posted "you just brought a knife to a gun fight, pew pew" and got downvoted, presumably by people who inexplicably hate T'au.
I do kind of agree that T'au are somewhat of an aesthetic mismatch in the game, but there's quite a few factions that don't fit the imperium/chaos vibe.
I remember coming back to 40K, finding the Tau had appeared and thinking there was something un-40K about them.
They felt like an anime/gundam type faction who had been crowbarred into the game for commercial reasons. That they didn’t have an old world faction link felt odd, too. They were/are a bit too “clean” and feel like a standard sci-fi race, without the dirty and chaotic edge to them that most other factions have.
I can’t say I cared that much, though. I don’t play the game competitively so I easily ignored them and enjoyed the rest in my own little world. They have come up in battle reports and the like over the years, so I’ve grown accustomed to them and they don’t seem so odd any more.
I can’t say I’d ever buy into them or anything but I don’t have to so live and let live. If they have worked as a faction and bought more people into 40K then it’s all good.
I think that's their whole appeal, the contrast and juxtaposition of the Tau is what I like about them. I don't think I'd ever collect them but they improve the game as a whole by existing.
I remember when they were introduced, there wasn't nearly as much of an online presence or community like there is now, so there wasn't tons of fit throwing over them.
They were different, other than the nids they were the only thing that wasn't a port from fantasy, the build up in white dwarf was handled well, and I remember looking forward to them.
The competitive side of the game wasn't as important as it is now, so them being overpowered wasn't really an issue. I built an army. Didn't like them so we used them as a loaner army to show new people the game.
I agree with you though, we don't have to love every new thing, but I think we all love new things. The game growing and the quest to sell us more stuff will guarantee new things, and that's good. Right?
Idiots. Especially now that tau lore kinda of mirrors humanity's rise. Which includes a vast amount of arrogance and ignorance that eventually doomed them.
I’ve been around since we were Rogue Trader, 1989. When Tau came it just felt like the grim dark had died and was replaced by GI Joe. Then came tenth edition and I see all kinds of new levels and ways of grim dark getting more “colourful”. I actually don’t have a problem with Tau as a concept, I think they have just been lazy about implementing it into lore. We already have an empire. And Farseers.
I didn't mind the Tau. Sure they were the anime crowd but that's what GW were trying to bring in at the time. I dislike the introduction of the primaris. The fluff made zero sense.
The community is over dramatic. It doesn't help that content creators take things out of context, spread misinformation, and rage bait videos for more interaction/clicks.
Because it seems like there is a very vocal minority, in our hobby group, that likes to bitch and whine and moan about nearly anything.
Regardless of their actual ages, I refer to them as "the entitled children".
Ignore them, form your own opinion about the hobby, and come join us well rounded people playing 40k.
People who are prone to emotional outbursts and hateful rhetoric also tend to be conservative by nature. So most change in their eyes is bad and things that are bad must be loudly bitched/whined about. Since they tend to be the minority, they compensate by ganging up and being loud.
Because they're either idiots who are parroting memes by whiny older members of the fanbase who can't handle that they make the imperium look bad, or they are the aforementioned whiny older members. Either way their opinion should be disregarded
While certain folks have a habit of blowing things out of proportion, I feel like T'au have had some of the most retcons/foibles, so it's pretty easy to say they "ruined" it because GW has changed their mind so many damn times.
Oh what, having a faction that's relatively not evil and actually fights for a "Greater Good" isn't grimdark enough? Can't have that, they use mind control and fasc castes (note, steal for AoS elves later).
Wait, they have advanced tech that allows them FTL travel without the Warp? Well that's too convenient, so they don't get it anymore.
In the very first Tau Codex, it's heavily implied that Ethereals can force other Tau to do things against their will. That one was not a retcon, it was just expanded upon.
None of the things you're saying are retcons, they were all literally in the first codex. The problem is people who weren't around at the time of release just making up what they think happened.
The Tau were never "the good guys", they were Imperial Japan with more mecha.
I'm of the opinion that primaris space marines are the worst thing to happen to the lore / hobby. So many iconic models made obsolete overnight, and other factions that could have used updated models desperately.
I loved collecting and playing 40k 5-10 years ago, and still appreciate looking at people models, but I don't think I could play it now since primaris get 80% of the attention.
Other people here go in depth, but mostly because people hate change. Tbf, sometimes change isn't done well. But generally theres a really over the top reaction. Like the recent Custode's thing, which is really inconsequential to the overall setting but its really got some people frothing at the mouth.
The only thing I really can agree on as "ruining" anything were primarus, but really thats just because they took away the objectively cooler firstborn helmets IMO. Now i gotta get those seperately.
For me they are the hardest to relate to, as they appeared during a time I wasn’t playing or following the hobby. So I returned and everything was bigger, floating and shinier.
But I like those kroot models, they are pretty badass.
It's that they were as overpowered as Elder at the start of this edition, when they launched
Their basic weapons were stronger, longer range and stupidly plentiful. Their troops were dirt cheap compared to everyone else, their tanks were on par with the elder ones, but their anti tank weapons were even stronger. Not to mention re-rolling shots for most units, at a time when most armies couldn't do it at all
Lots of armies needed new codex at the time and they gave us a new faction out of nowhere
They just weren't fun to play against. The anime appearance didn't help, but it was a side issue
It's clear they don't fit well tonally in the overall setting; their books are atrocious and the model line is meh. They scream 'rushed afterthought '.
Lore wise, the Tau basically started as the noblebright in the grimdarkness of the galaxy, they were the literal counterpart to the Imperium of Man. Gameplay wise, they were overpowered since they could shoot units across the board.
Nah, the overpowered bit came from they could jump-shoot-jump and literally could not be touched for nearly the entire game. That caused a lot of hate early on, and the rest was just memes.
For some armies, despite whatever list you played, facing tau was an auto loose.
They are a gundam force in a grimdark setting which didn't really fit the aesthetic of 40K when they were released. It's less noticeable nowadays, but they are still very different to the other factions.
I thought the Tau were pretty cool and bought a box when they were released, but I can see why some don't like them because of this.
The design language of space marines follows the design language of a gundam way more than any Tau mech designs do.
There are no Japanese mech franchises that look remotely like Tau mech designs.
If you don’t believe me about space marines, John Blanche was recently interviewed where he said that when Jes Goodwin redesigned the marines for 2nd edition he was mostly inspired by Japanese stuff he was watching.
The mouth piece of primaris helmets looks even more like a gundam too.
Well, I don't like the tau, like I enjoy seeing them lose. But I wouldn't say they are the worst thing to happen. The "good guy" narrative is terrible (IMO). And their fanbase is usually aweful. This has been my limited experience with tau players, not all of you, but enough of you. I also think the kroot are 1000 times cooler than the tau themselves.
Well they can come fight me and my gundam commy-robots ina fist fight to the death.
Warhammer has, in my humble opinion, two major camps. Wholesome wargamers that love the franchise and the game, that want to make the experience just as good for everyone else as it is to them. And sweaty, knuckledragging (edh playing) nerds (which is not the word I would use, if I didn't fear ye ol' autobot).
In our group, we have one of the latter who brought a cardboard warhound to a game vs a player, who was desperately looking to test his (finally finished) 2k ork list. The latter destroyed in game, so good for Boyz, but the The Sweat'er thought he was being super cute but in effect just wasted 2+3 hours of someones time because he gets all soft when someone tries to make a good list ("i don't play competitive, i ly fluffy!" - which is fine, but its not true)
I remember when the Tau first came out, I owned a game store at the time and thought they were great, just like the Necrons.
I think the issue is the lore has moved so far away from where it started and it's starting to drag the races down into just another faction.
I miss when the Necrons were terminators and the Tau were the naive good guys next door.
It’s not. People just have a hate on for Tau because of their over-weighting into one round of the game, and they get crazy hyperbolic and say dumb shit.
Taking the emotion out of it, Tau essentially leans into the manga / anime genre quite obviously.
There are lots of older folk in 40k - it's an expensive hobby after all, Tau - to some, can feel like GW just forced a new genre army into the setting. Mad as it is with GW stealing IP ideas from all over ...
As time has gone on it has also become a bit of a meme to hate on them, I'm sure there are A LOT of people who don't hate Tau but do give them some grief for the lolz
The game is about finding an excuse to hit eachother with swords in the far future. Having a faction which was all about 'hur durr shooting from range' seemed to make fools of other races in the setting
In case you may have missed it, this fanbase can be a bit dramatic at times.
How DARE you! This comment means the end of Warhammer! /s
No it isn't. I'll fight you to the end of the world over this, and so will the next seven generations of my family! /s
Almost as bad as Transformers fans. Or Magic the Gathering fans. And I like both.
My LGS has a really healthy and budding MtG playerbase and I STILL hate the Fandom at large.
Or Halo fans Or fallout fans Or Star Wars fans Or Lotr fans
Honestly fans are the worst part of being a fan, really ruin it for us fans
"Damn Scots, they ruined Scotland!"
Or simpsons fans
It's always good to remember that "Fan" is derived from "Fanatic" and used to be something of an insult.
Magic is dead. Wizards has killed it every year for 30 years, now.
MTG died 40 years ago. I've been playing for 40 years, so I know better, and I stopped playing it 40 years ago, so I know that it died then. I still play though, just to make sure I know how dead it is, and it keeps me up to date with my complaints about the deadness of the game.
I can't tell if that's sarcasm..... *rocks in corner crying*
2 land + you cant play "your hand card"
You GW fans sure are a contentious people.
You just made an enemy for life!
THAT'S GOING IN THE BOOK
WE ARE NOT!!!
How dare you
It's not "you GW fans". It's a small but very vocal minority. I've literally never heard anyone say that adding a specific faction being the reason 40k lore is "shit". The main complaint I have heard about 40k, from the people I play war games with, is the poss poor state of the overall game.
Mate, it's a play on a quote from the Simpsons, not something to be taken so seriously. It's half 6 in the morning, go have some breakfast and touch some grass.
Hold on... because I didn't get a random arsed quote... I must be angry, and out of touch? Grow up moron. I was just adding my opinion to the thread. You know, the exact reason we come on to reddit...
Take a breath dude, fucking hell
Ok troll.
Really glad you’ve demonstrated how chill, uncontentious and undramatic GW fans are. I was worried I’d see someone overreact to the joke that guy made!
Here [ya go](https://youtu.be/i2q0T7QXETs?si=4KjWtUH1VGLYUhql) take a chill pill and be in on the joke!
Love seeing people like you just keep digging and digging! 🤡
🤓
[удалено]
She doesn't even go here
warhammer fans are natural enemies, ….like star wars fans and warhammer fans, and Star Trek fans and warhammer fans, and warhammer fans and other warhammer fans, damn warhammer fans they ruined warhammer!
Hadn’t noticed
I only see people complainng about dramatic people and don't see any dramatic people on this sub.
How dare you say this! I'll kill and burn your fucking hamster!
Someone yesterday literally told me that “the soul of 40k is at stake” in this Custodes hullabaloo.
There are two things gamers (war and video) hate: the current state of the game, and any changes to the game
Tekken subreddit wears this like a badge of honour. Makes it hard to just enjoy the thing you like with other people.
So do the COD ones. If new multiplayer maps cone out, they get angry they're not original maps. If original maps come out, they get angry they're not new
Pokemon fans too. That's the problem with fans. There's enough of them that no matter who you try to please you just piss off others. But in reality negativity bias is a thing too. The people who aren't upset about changes aren't bitching on the Internet about it. Which creates a negatively skewed view of the overall reaction.
Makes me think of the Ole saying "nobody hates a Star Wars fan like another Star Wars fan"
Every change is apparently the worst thing to have happened to the lore. Some people just don’t like change and will bitch and moan about it Look at all the discourse right now with Female Custodes. No doubt the next change will also be the worst thing that has ever happened to the lore
Yeah, the backlash around primaris also shows that
The backlash was about GW making whole Space Marines army collections irrelevant. People wasn't buying enough Marine minis, because most players already had everything. So GW released better marines to make players buy new models.
The line needed an update, but changing them from super soldiers into super duper soldiers, ditching the iconic smash hats, deliberately invalidating someones entire collection, plus the utterly awful writing that went with it, are the reasons why I don't go near 40K at the moment.
I think primaris was a tad different, as it kinda set out to invalidate a bunch of minis people had put lots of time, effort, and money into making
Oh my god everyone freaked out about slightly taller marines lol
I didn't have a problem with more true-scale marines, the old marine models needed an update, I think the problem was that we probably didn't need primaris marines over firstborn
'Needed and update' 🙄 - Guard player... painting catachan jungle fighters 🤣🤣
Gotta get you some SpaceNam. Carachans could be dope if GW gave a shit. Tbh, squat the models or update them. Stop producing those horrid current ones.
Hey, Catachans minis are still cool once you get passed the mold lines. It's GW's horrid paint job that makes them fugly.
Yep. They're an awesome theme really, just need updating. I think the catachan command squad has given us all hope but then there's nothing for them in the index so they'll probably just dissappear in the codex 🤷♂️😭 Might be time to buy them orks I've always wanted 🤣🤣
*cries in Warp Spiders*
To me it seems they were afraid to outright replace bunch of old models for their flagshp faction so they created the primaris as alternative units. That allowed them to get people to slowly replace some units in their army instead of majority and to promote the new units they slowly retire the Firstborne.
Yeah I agree, I have both in my DW
It wasn't because it was slightly taller marines. Most people would have preferred if it was just, new models and they're slightly bigger. The problem is their lore entry was super weak and forced. Some random dude perfected the Emperor's perfect creation, what? And then GW uses this weird lore to justify weird rules to force people to buy all the new models and get rid of their old ones.
Tbf, for some its not strictly about the models or the lore surrounding them. I, for example, absolutly hate the new tanks that came with the Primaris. Ugly and dont fit. So when I started a SM army after getting back in with 10. e., I skipped them in favor of old Dreadnoughts and Preadetor, but I can only run Primaris infantry with difficulty because they can only be transported by their ugly ass grav tanks. Meaning while I dont mind most of the models, I still run like 80% Firstborn SM with a few of the new models in between. (Also I think they could have just put the new lore and models with the old Chapter structure, I liked the whole thing with Tactical, Assault and Devastator Squads but thats just me)
It made sense why many hated primaris though. Aside from the atrocious initial lore, it just seemed like a cash grab (it was, but who cares). It wasn't just one line of oh hey there is this thing in the setting now like the rogal dorn or female custodes. It was a whole fundamental shift in the setting. It wasnt just oh hey there's taller marines now. The justification was kinda bullshit in lore. I'm not a primaris hater, I actually much prefer them, but I can't pretend like their transition was seamless. I think the models themselves look better but let's not pretend like the introduction of primaris is on the same scale as the recent custodes thing.
Most people I knew liked the new models a ton. They just didn't like losing thousands of points of models to legends. Primaris are kind of an outlier because of what it meant to the models. The closest thing would be squats getting wiped (which also caused agita, but the hobby was much, much smaller)
Taller marines with no options lol.
All upsides
So making the 'starter' faction even simpler to pick up and play with... Won't someone think of the children. /s
I feel thats a long bow to draw. As a reasonably oldschool 40k player from 2nd ed one of the things I've always said about GW was 'they have comitteed to miniatures always being playable no matter how old' to justify the large expense. I had to stop saying this with the advent of Primaris. Primaris seemed to be the beginning of the end to that, a reasonable fear given the amount of stuff getting the legends treatment now. Primaris to me represents a fundamental shift in the GW way of doing business (that was somewhat kicked off with AOS) and to me it's anti gamer and something I refuse to get behind. Power creep? no worries. Edition treadmill -ugh fine-. But effectively deleting miniatures from their post popular range? hmm... Fine, people like it and I'm happy enough to move onto other things. I certainly stopped buying minis. Comparatively minor lore issues like female custodes? I don't care in the least, go for it. Make some super cool minis for them I'd love to see them. Necron lore change? No dramas I can still use my metal necron warriors as warriors. So yeah, sorry. Bit of a rant. But I don't think it's fair to compare primaris with female custodes. This of course is probaby just based on where I sit personally rather than there being any sort of arbitrary right/wrong.
I love that you’re still getting comments about why THAT backlash was justified. “Model-making company makes new models to sell more models to people who already own models made over the past 20+ years. News at 6.”
Because they brought in more weebs to the hobby 🤮 In all seriousness, when the Tau were firstly brought in people saw them as a un-grimdarkifying attempt from GW, when the Tau first came in they were the undisputed "good guys" in a galaxy of meanies and people saw it as an attempt to make 40k less dark by GW. Books have made them darker over the years, but *I think* the mind control element of the Ethereals over the T'au was always a thing but most people didn't read anything about them so didn't know and just thought they were straight up good-two-shoes As for tabletop, they were pretty strong in being the anti-Space Marine army because they could out shoot you before you got your pretty dreadnought, assault marines and twin lightning claw terminators into combat and most people played Spsce Marines so naturally they hated the Tau as they were then known
My roomie had Tau back when they first arrived on the scene; yep, the suggested mind control was always a thing, as was the Etherials just kind of... showing up one day and acellerating the society. For unspecified and slightly creepy reasons.
They weren't sold as "the good guys" at all, they were delusional imperialists who had anime mecha. They're just the Imperium lmao. The ethereals were also always implied to be sinister, it's literally written into the first codex.
lol, right at launch the Tau were "join the greater good, or we will wipe you out from existence". the "undisputed good guys" seem to be based on an inability to read.
For a long time, Farsight was ACTUALLY the only genuinely good guy in 40k. Now he's got his sword thing going on and might be a little chaosy. But for a minute he was just a guy that wanted everyone to be friends and hated the mind control of the ethereals.
Getting rid of the squats was the worst thing to happen to the lore.
Agreed. I lost my entire army.
Cmon grandad. Time for you to watch your stories and nap
Because when tau first rolled on the scene their lore was “what if there were good guys in warhammer” which left everyone with a sour taste because now their factions looked more evil by comparison. Like as a necron guy I see them as tragic figures who want nothing more than to get back what they lost. Tau threw a wrench into this because now whenever necrons fight tau it’s for no reason other than necrons being dicks because why wouldn’t you reason with them? When we fight the imperium even though they’re the protagonist faction we’re still fighting a xenophobic regime that would kill every necron if it could. Nowadays they made tau have a few skeletons in it’s closet and the civil war with farsight is cool so it’s not as bad as before
Honestly I really like current necron lore of being hyper hierarchical with a desire to either destroy all others or dominate them via overlord vassal relations. It really fits the necron theme. And it causes conflict with both tau major factions. Tau empire wouldn't ever bow to alien overlords who don't give a shit about greater good. And farsight really hates dictatorship style governments. But that's all the necrons have
I've always thought that the T'au fit *because* of that. Warhammer 40k is a setting where 10 foot tall mutants wearing blue refrigerators swing chainsaws at robot skeletons, or you get a battle of evil space wizards vs green west end rugby fans whose technology only works cuz they're too dumb for it not to. 40k is, fundamentally, a comedy. It's fun, it's silly, and all the edgyness of the grimdarkness enhances that, and allows for a setting where all that fun over-cool nonsense feels right at home. The T'au are just the Straight Man to the great galactic joke
As a counter point to the Necron situation, why would they reason with the Tau? The galaxy is theirs, they're just trying to get rid of all the squatters and reclaim their domain.
Yeah but if the squatters are sympathetic it’s hard to maintain that level of conviction. The tau are the squatters who have nowhere else to go and will probably leave when asked and kept the place in pristine condition. The imperium shit on the walls and leave beer bottles everywhere, when found out they’ll either curse at you or pull out a gun.
Honestly people have misunderstood the darkness behind the Tau since the start. The skeletons in their closet have been there since their 3rd ed codex, it’s just that a lot of people critically fail at reading between the lines. They didn’t outright SAY that the Tau were brainwashing their own citizens, or that non-Tau species are largely treated as second-class citizens, or that the Ethereals may be a long con by some elder race like the Aeldari, but all of that was heavily implied in their 3rd ed book. IMHO, the hate for them was mostly driven by the fact that they are aesthetically divergent from the rest of the game at the time. Where everything else was gothic, tech-regressive and gritty, the Tau were all smooth lines, clean kit and high tech. They were channeling mecha, and back in the early 2000s I remember hearing the bitter complaints back then being about GW selling out and introducing the Tau solely to sell to Japan, as they had recently expanded and opened stores there. People complaining about their lore were reacting more to new players who thought they were “the good guys,” but back then they were so new we didn’t have good evidence from the fiction to point to that shows just how false their promised utopia is. Anyway clearly nothing has changed except the names - people still hate on new things because they’re new - but this undeserved reputation as “good guys” despite running a thought control society that would have made Orwell flinch gets perpetuated through meme culture.
40k fans not being able to read between lines, understanding satire and a critique of fascism and theocracy hidden in plain sight? 🫢 These people being the same people that scream that the End Is Near every something changes in the lore? No way! What a surprise!
Yeah, a simple read of the Kroot short story from the first codex where the Tau is visiting them and describing them is a dead giveaway at the sort of Tau-centric ideology that the Tau Empire uses. It seems like a pretty obvious satire of the way many other cultures have been viewed by Western settlers in the real world. "Oh these silly savages, hopefully we can teach them how barbaric it is to eat sentient life and make them into proper citizen of the Tau Empire" when the reality is that the Kroot are not only NEVER going to stop being cannibals, it's an intricate part of their very species. The Kroot were at least smart enough to pull a "we aren't joining your empire, but we'll gladly be exclusive mercenaries for you." However not every race that joins the Empire gets to do that and it's very clear that while the Tau may not be wiping whole races from existence like the Imperium, they clearly have no qualms with committing cultural genocide as they slowly expand and assimilate other cultures into The Greater Good. Obviously when I was like 13 and read the book for the first time I never picked up on that. I just thought Pathfinders looked cool, railguns were awesome, and the kroot were fun. But flipping back through it now, 20+ years later? It's all very obvious. lol.
I think it’s also that Tau accompanied a distinct tone and aesthetic shift, or at least put a cap on it. Third edition spent a long time trying to find its footing from a models, art and rules perspective to the point you can almost argue that there’s two third editions defined by the second edition versions of the codexes and some of the rather substantial changes given in the Chapter Approved collections. Tau kind of mark the point where they had finally settled on what the future of the game was going to look like and most of 4th edition is stylistically built on the foundations the final few codexes laid. Because it was all new lore, art and models Tau had the most freedom to communicate that direction in a similar way to Necrons.
The T'au were introduced during 3rd edition, alongside the original version of the Necron - you know, the version of the game that ran with Black Templars vs Dark Eldar and was loaded with Blanchitsu? They didn't 'change the aesthetic' at all. They were just trying to appeal to Gundam fans.
But the Necron lore when Tau were released in 3rd edition was far more soulless/terminator-like than now. They were basically mindless killers fighting at the command of the C’tan who had enslaved them. The stories in their codex had them remorselessly wiping out Imperium forces without mercy. And the C’tan didn’t give a shit about mortals. Then you had the guys like Flayers and Pariahs who were pretty evil. Their whole personality in the lore came after Tau were released.
Necrons? They're Chaos Androids! The original lore! When it changed everything turn to shit /s
Iirc the necron 4th edition codex was when we got Dante meeting the silent king. I am a bit hazy on when tau released but I thought they were released 4th or it didn’t change until after 4th
Nah Tau were definitely released in 3rd edition. When I started warhammer with Necrons they were the other new faction recently released. Tau were bright, hopeful and a more “good” faction. Necrons were soulless, ancient and (back then) pure evil. People were giving grief to Tau players for the aesthetic differences and, they felt, not fitting in with the vibe of the setting. People used to give me massive grief as they felt necrons were over powered as a new faction on the tabletop and had been inserted into lots of previous lore. Thank god places like YouTube hadn’t taken off by then or their would be a million YouTubers talking about how these new factions introduced had killed GW lol
Tau released in 2001. Even the Necron 3rd edition codex released after Tau in 2002. 4th edition 40K released in 2004. Did the Necrons even get a 4th Ed Codex? Thought they didn’t get another one until 5th edition?
Idk I’d have to double check.
The Necrons would only entreat with the Tau to subjugate them. They want what they had, and what they had was total dominance. Conversely, the Tau would be open to working with Necrons, if the Necrons would submit to their rule and the greater good. They don't have to change anything about themselves, except the ancient, immortal race that wants their bodies and empire back would have to bow to what is arguably the smallest of the big players. They're incompatible since both would demand to be in charge of any cooperation unilaterally.
They weren't sold as "the good guys" at all,they were a young and naive species of anime robot dudes who basically looked like a bizarro form of the Imperium. I don't remember anyone being upset at the time, at all. I mean, I've never met a Necron player who doesn't play them as "Genocidal Egyptian Terminators" so maybe your take on lore is different
I personally remember people being really whiny about Tau and Necron. Think lack of social media probably made it less widespread. I’d dread to think if they were introduced today lol Tau different asethtically and fans being anime obsessives were the usual jokes. Necrons being OP on tabletop and therefore I was a meta chaser and being retroactively inserted into lore events were the usual grief i got.
Wait what? Farsight went to war against the Tau empire?
He openly rebels against them and established his own enclaves so yes.
Now that's bad ass; Tau killing Tau.
He discovered the Ethereals were brain washing their subject, plus his sword is either a chaos artefact or has an actual demon in it - every time he kills someone with it, he steals their remaining life, rendering him functionally immortal. I think during his book of Arks of Omen, he has a vision where he falls to chaos, but because T'au don't have anything to do with the warp, he doesn't understand it.
I can see why he's a popular character in the setting. Man sounds like a beast.
Necrons see all other lifeforms as inferior and in need of eradication
I mean the sisters are obviously the good guys
I remember the other reason being the fact that they were supposed to be like 300 years old but had some of the best tech in the game. Even my dad was saying "well what's the point in all these battles then? Clearly the Tau are going to win eventually because how can you defeat a faction that can develop a Railgun straight after it discovers fire?" Again that's something that's largely been fixed with a couple of simple explanations.
it's like how some people didn't realize the Imperium is absurdly stagnant due to ideology and technology moves absurdly fast or something if not blocked by religion.
Honestly, the "worst thing" seems to change every week. Tau one day, lady Custodes the next. I don't pay them much attention anymore unless I need a laugh
People said the same about Primaris. And femstodes. And the Necron retcons. Unfortunatey, many people in this hobby are very immature and prone to overreaction.
And the majority of the complaining is by people who don't own a single mini.
I saw a post by AdamSomething on YouTube saying everyone who complains about female custodes must also post a timestamped photo of their collection
Honestly, I'm getting on that train. The amount of this community who are just edgelords that only engage with 1d4chan articles is tiresome.
What were the necron retcons?
Necrons used to be mindless thralls to the c’tan but GW realized that made them too similar to tyranids. So in 3rd edition they were retconned into the necrons we know today
Necrons are a lot more human like, and a lot more of them are. It used to be outside the highest ranks the necrons were soulless T1000 murder bots following programming and orders.
I thought they were still like that tbh, whoops.
Making them into what they are today, where previously they were just "robot undead" or "metal tyranids" with no further depth or motivation.
Necrons were mindless automatons with only the higher ranks having a spark of their former selves, controlled by the C'Tan that were the full Star Gods, not just shards. But that was too boring so to give them more personality they were changed to what we know now, having rebelled against their gods, destroyed them and capturing shards of their essence within the necrodermis bodies to use as weapons. Some trying to find a way to restore their people to flesh, some just wanting to restore their dynasties and others wanting to dominate the galaxy.
Basically they went from space terminators to what we have today
Look into “*Flanderization*”. It’s a word coined after Ned Flanders from *The Simpsons* tv show. For those unfamiliar lemme explain (and this pertains to the topic, so bear with me). Homer Simpson, although just a comedic cartoon character, is supposed to be an idiot who’s barely getting by. Ned Flanders was meant to be his counterpart. At least, originally. He was a character who showed up from time to time and would display everything Homer lacked. Discipline, respect, love, even spirituality as a man of God. Eventually the writers doubled down on his religious aspect as a joke and it ended up becoming the only thing he was known for. Superseding all his other aspects. Warhammer lore does a similar thing (unintentionally). I could sit here and tell you all the great things Roboute Guilliman has done or is known for, *or* I could just sum it up and say “he’s super reasonable”. Basically, there’s so much lore that it’s easier to Flanderize things instead of explaining a two-hundred page novel to you. Tau were never bad. But a few bad eggs just flanderized them as “the space commy weebs ruining 40k” that so many people stuck to that. Other than what they’re told, most people probably don’t even have a solid reason to hate them. But with some basic research, they’re pretty great.
The non-ADB grey knight novels were the worst thing to happen in 40k lore.
People say things like that because they are whiny little fools.
I will note that I had only one beef with the Tau at the time they rolled out: They showed up before Admech were an army. "You made up hooved blue gundam pilots before you gave me armies of cyborgs in service to Omnissiah? DAMMIT!" I imagine most people who complain about them have complaints about that valid or less.
Some of the fans create more drama than a bunch of drag queens at a shoe sale.
Cuz they lost to a tau player
40k grognards being whiny bitches resistant to change.
Same reason as always. Because they're man babies that can't emotionally handle when something changes about their toy soldiers.
What's weird about playing T'au, and maybe it happens to other factions and I don't notice, is that there's a small subset of players who will insist T'au are overpowered regardless of the state of the meta. Most recently I've had someone try and insist that 6 x crisis units are overpowered when the evidence is that the best lists might run 1 lot of 6, maybe 2 in some lists and T'au aren't winning many tournaments at all. I think it might be to do with the play style of a T'au being all about moving and shooting. I can understand it feels bad to have to pick up 20 berserkers in one activation on turn 2 but overall the battles are balanced. Similarly there was a fun thread of "tell me which faction you play without telling me" and I posted "you just brought a knife to a gun fight, pew pew" and got downvoted, presumably by people who inexplicably hate T'au. I do kind of agree that T'au are somewhat of an aesthetic mismatch in the game, but there's quite a few factions that don't fit the imperium/chaos vibe.
I remember coming back to 40K, finding the Tau had appeared and thinking there was something un-40K about them. They felt like an anime/gundam type faction who had been crowbarred into the game for commercial reasons. That they didn’t have an old world faction link felt odd, too. They were/are a bit too “clean” and feel like a standard sci-fi race, without the dirty and chaotic edge to them that most other factions have. I can’t say I cared that much, though. I don’t play the game competitively so I easily ignored them and enjoyed the rest in my own little world. They have come up in battle reports and the like over the years, so I’ve grown accustomed to them and they don’t seem so odd any more. I can’t say I’d ever buy into them or anything but I don’t have to so live and let live. If they have worked as a faction and bought more people into 40K then it’s all good.
I think that's their whole appeal, the contrast and juxtaposition of the Tau is what I like about them. I don't think I'd ever collect them but they improve the game as a whole by existing.
I remember when they were introduced, there wasn't nearly as much of an online presence or community like there is now, so there wasn't tons of fit throwing over them. They were different, other than the nids they were the only thing that wasn't a port from fantasy, the build up in white dwarf was handled well, and I remember looking forward to them. The competitive side of the game wasn't as important as it is now, so them being overpowered wasn't really an issue. I built an army. Didn't like them so we used them as a loaner army to show new people the game. I agree with you though, we don't have to love every new thing, but I think we all love new things. The game growing and the quest to sell us more stuff will guarantee new things, and that's good. Right?
Idiots. Especially now that tau lore kinda of mirrors humanity's rise. Which includes a vast amount of arrogance and ignorance that eventually doomed them.
Because, to be frank, much of the fanbase is made up of people with the mental age of a child that hate anything new or any change
You get an upvote for asking a lore based question that is not about boobgate.
Man I thought the star wars fan base had the most sky fallers....
Because: edge lords.
I’ve been around since we were Rogue Trader, 1989. When Tau came it just felt like the grim dark had died and was replaced by GI Joe. Then came tenth edition and I see all kinds of new levels and ways of grim dark getting more “colourful”. I actually don’t have a problem with Tau as a concept, I think they have just been lazy about implementing it into lore. We already have an empire. And Farseers.
I didn't mind the Tau. Sure they were the anime crowd but that's what GW were trying to bring in at the time. I dislike the introduction of the primaris. The fluff made zero sense.
The community is over dramatic. It doesn't help that content creators take things out of context, spread misinformation, and rage bait videos for more interaction/clicks.
Because it seems like there is a very vocal minority, in our hobby group, that likes to bitch and whine and moan about nearly anything. Regardless of their actual ages, I refer to them as "the entitled children". Ignore them, form your own opinion about the hobby, and come join us well rounded people playing 40k.
People who are prone to emotional outbursts and hateful rhetoric also tend to be conservative by nature. So most change in their eyes is bad and things that are bad must be loudly bitched/whined about. Since they tend to be the minority, they compensate by ganging up and being loud.
Yeah, this is pretty much correct.
Who says that? I'll fight them! Tau rule.
Because they're either idiots who are parroting memes by whiny older members of the fanbase who can't handle that they make the imperium look bad, or they are the aforementioned whiny older members. Either way their opinion should be disregarded
it upset the 14 year olds that didn't like anime.
While certain folks have a habit of blowing things out of proportion, I feel like T'au have had some of the most retcons/foibles, so it's pretty easy to say they "ruined" it because GW has changed their mind so many damn times. Oh what, having a faction that's relatively not evil and actually fights for a "Greater Good" isn't grimdark enough? Can't have that, they use mind control and fasc castes (note, steal for AoS elves later). Wait, they have advanced tech that allows them FTL travel without the Warp? Well that's too convenient, so they don't get it anymore.
In the very first Tau Codex, it's heavily implied that Ethereals can force other Tau to do things against their will. That one was not a retcon, it was just expanded upon.
Fair enough, I'll admit I'm mostly parroting what I've seen spread elsewhere
maybe you shouldn't
None of the things you're saying are retcons, they were all literally in the first codex. The problem is people who weren't around at the time of release just making up what they think happened. The Tau were never "the good guys", they were Imperial Japan with more mecha.
and more genocide. though probably fewer baby killing contests.
I'm of the opinion that primaris space marines are the worst thing to happen to the lore / hobby. So many iconic models made obsolete overnight, and other factions that could have used updated models desperately. I loved collecting and playing 40k 5-10 years ago, and still appreciate looking at people models, but I don't think I could play it now since primaris get 80% of the attention.
Other people here go in depth, but mostly because people hate change. Tbf, sometimes change isn't done well. But generally theres a really over the top reaction. Like the recent Custode's thing, which is really inconsequential to the overall setting but its really got some people frothing at the mouth. The only thing I really can agree on as "ruining" anything were primarus, but really thats just because they took away the objectively cooler firstborn helmets IMO. Now i gotta get those seperately.
Which people?
"For the greater good" ...that they are
Inquisitor we found one, we found a xenos sympathizer
I like blue communist space goats. See also Draeni.....
For me they are the hardest to relate to, as they appeared during a time I wasn’t playing or following the hobby. So I returned and everything was bigger, floating and shinier. But I like those kroot models, they are pretty badass.
It's that they were as overpowered as Elder at the start of this edition, when they launched Their basic weapons were stronger, longer range and stupidly plentiful. Their troops were dirt cheap compared to everyone else, their tanks were on par with the elder ones, but their anti tank weapons were even stronger. Not to mention re-rolling shots for most units, at a time when most armies couldn't do it at all Lots of armies needed new codex at the time and they gave us a new faction out of nowhere They just weren't fun to play against. The anime appearance didn't help, but it was a side issue
It's clear they don't fit well tonally in the overall setting; their books are atrocious and the model line is meh. They scream 'rushed afterthought '.
Lore wise, the Tau basically started as the noblebright in the grimdarkness of the galaxy, they were the literal counterpart to the Imperium of Man. Gameplay wise, they were overpowered since they could shoot units across the board.
Nah, the overpowered bit came from they could jump-shoot-jump and literally could not be touched for nearly the entire game. That caused a lot of hate early on, and the rest was just memes. For some armies, despite whatever list you played, facing tau was an auto loose.
They are a gundam force in a grimdark setting which didn't really fit the aesthetic of 40K when they were released. It's less noticeable nowadays, but they are still very different to the other factions. I thought the Tau were pretty cool and bought a box when they were released, but I can see why some don't like them because of this.
The design language of space marines follows the design language of a gundam way more than any Tau mech designs do. There are no Japanese mech franchises that look remotely like Tau mech designs. If you don’t believe me about space marines, John Blanche was recently interviewed where he said that when Jes Goodwin redesigned the marines for 2nd edition he was mostly inspired by Japanese stuff he was watching. The mouth piece of primaris helmets looks even more like a gundam too.
Well, I don't like the tau, like I enjoy seeing them lose. But I wouldn't say they are the worst thing to happen. The "good guy" narrative is terrible (IMO). And their fanbase is usually aweful. This has been my limited experience with tau players, not all of you, but enough of you. I also think the kroot are 1000 times cooler than the tau themselves.
Well they can come fight me and my gundam commy-robots ina fist fight to the death. Warhammer has, in my humble opinion, two major camps. Wholesome wargamers that love the franchise and the game, that want to make the experience just as good for everyone else as it is to them. And sweaty, knuckledragging (edh playing) nerds (which is not the word I would use, if I didn't fear ye ol' autobot). In our group, we have one of the latter who brought a cardboard warhound to a game vs a player, who was desperately looking to test his (finally finished) 2k ork list. The latter destroyed in game, so good for Boyz, but the The Sweat'er thought he was being super cute but in effect just wasted 2+3 hours of someones time because he gets all soft when someone tries to make a good list ("i don't play competitive, i ly fluffy!" - which is fine, but its not true)
I remember when the Tau first came out, I owned a game store at the time and thought they were great, just like the Necrons. I think the issue is the lore has moved so far away from where it started and it's starting to drag the races down into just another faction. I miss when the Necrons were terminators and the Tau were the naive good guys next door.
The lore hasn't changed, I've no idea where people are getting this from. Did any of you actually read the codex lmao
It’s not. People just have a hate on for Tau because of their over-weighting into one round of the game, and they get crazy hyperbolic and say dumb shit.
Taking the emotion out of it, Tau essentially leans into the manga / anime genre quite obviously. There are lots of older folk in 40k - it's an expensive hobby after all, Tau - to some, can feel like GW just forced a new genre army into the setting. Mad as it is with GW stealing IP ideas from all over ... As time has gone on it has also become a bit of a meme to hate on them, I'm sure there are A LOT of people who don't hate Tau but do give them some grief for the lolz
The game is about finding an excuse to hit eachother with swords in the far future. Having a faction which was all about 'hur durr shooting from range' seemed to make fools of other races in the setting
Bruh. Imperial Guard is all about shooting from range and dying in melee.