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Hunt11 posted:So how do the Tau handle the whole psyker issue? (hands over ears) la la la I can't hear you
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Apr 14, 2018 08:37
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Hunt11 posted:So how do the Tau handle the whole psyker issue?
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Apr 14, 2018 08:49
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Hunt11 posted:So how do the Tau handle the whole psyker issue? Tau don't have psykers. But I don't really know much about they view other psykers.
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Apr 14, 2018 09:37
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They recently experimented with better FTL, which ended up tearing a hole in reality and disappearing the fleet of ships that were about to fly out. Fast forward a few centuries and contact is reestablished with the remnants, half a galaxy away, and now linked to the empire via a mysterious new wormhole. The survivors aren't saying what happened, all their auxiliaries are gone and they're worryingly enthusiastic about genociding aliens. It's heavily implied that though Tau don't get possessed, the same isn't true for their allies, and having to survive the kroot, vespid, nicassars etc get demon-possessed gave the survivors of the forth sphere expansion a bit of the old Imperial xenophobia.
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Apr 14, 2018 09:58
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It's mentioned that while the Tau have a psychic presence, it's incredibly small and barely noticeable from a Warp perspective. Too much work for next to no reward from a daemon perspective. The human psyker issue hasn't come up much, though likely, it isn't necessarily anywhere near as often a problem as the Imperium acts like it is. Probably on a case by case basis. Might be interesting to have something like an Inquisitor stuck on a defected world trying to make the most of it and convince the Tau of the dangers of ignoring psykers.
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Apr 14, 2018 10:05
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It's mentioned that while the Tau have a psychic presence, it's incredibly small and barely noticeable from a Warp perspective. Too much work for next to no reward from a daemon perspective. I know there's a defected inquisitor now in a command role in the Farsight Enclave, though I've never seen much fiction giving her perspective on the empire.
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Apr 14, 2018 12:02
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Trying to make sure the Imperium gets conquered by the Tau isn't even on the top 20 craziest plans Inquisitors have had to Save The Imperium.
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Apr 14, 2018 12:11
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Night10194 posted:One of the example RTs stole a Warlord class Titan and stuck it on his ship as a hood ornament. Never uses it for anything else. Just has it there to say he has it. It's funny; the books are so gorgeous and the production values in general so good that I couldn't help but assume that the rules weren't poorly thought out hot garbage. You'd think Pathfinder and 3.x woulda cured me of that fallacy. Really though the best thing about Rogue Trader was the artwork: the Vin Diesel looking Void-Master, the Seneschal swinging into action with their Action Clipboard and Tactical Quill Pen... we shoulda all just freeformed it using the art as a jumping off point. "Poster" is the best medium for conveying the Imperium of Man anyways.
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Apr 14, 2018 12:24
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The Lone Badger posted:Trying to make sure the Imperium gets conquered by the Tau isn't even on the top 20 craziest plans Inquisitors have had to Save The Imperium. And wouldn't even be far-fetched for an Inquisitor or two to go 'Well we can't conquer them and we're actually negotiating with them on occasion, might as well try to help them understand what the gently caress is out there and not let them become a Chaos puppet'. Half the reason Inquisitors are given such leeway is because on occasion it might give them the opportunity to demonstrate common sense for once. Might be interesting given the differences of Tau society and culture. It seems implied that while they may have a higher average standard of living, Tau society doesn't necessarily have a lot of personal freedom, what with the caste system and all, but with their auxillaries/client races it seems they generally leave the existing social structure in place, so humans under Tau rule may barely notice the difference but for different jingo and better technology. Some planets might even work out a deal to keep sending psykers to the Black Ships, though not sure how that might work in practice. In any case, an Inquisitor could easily make themselves useful to a Tau government ruling a human populace, though likely be under very justified suspicion of being a spy. There's a possible campaign hook there, a defector (or just stuck on the planet when the government surrendered) Inquisitor working under the alien Tau government trying to prove their usefulness and keep the Tau's seemingly insane naivety and alien values from letting them invite disaster, paired up with a Tau agent quite unsubtly meant to keep a close eye on them and make sure they're not undermining the Greater Good. Fun buddy cop setup with a mixed retinue. Apparently, the Water Caste's jobs include the Tau's equivalent of the Inquisition and they manage to play on an even field against them, so they're likely not naive in that sense. drunkencarp posted:It's funny; the books are so gorgeous and the production values in general so good that I couldn't help but assume that the rules weren't poorly thought out hot garbage. You'd think Pathfinder and 3.x woulda cured me of that fallacy. It's more that just... good game design from any level of the industry tends to frankly be more of a freak accident, with people only putting effort into judging how a system works as a whole relatively recently now we have the internet to actually compare and contrast systems. And we're still dealing with a somehow even more more vicious and deep-seated equivalent to the console wars with people being unreasonably attached to the system they're used to despite increasing irrelevance and choices. Ghost Leviathan fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 13:01
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MonsterEnvy posted:Tau don't have psykers. But I don't really know much about they view other psykers. Through a high-magnification scope?
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Apr 14, 2018 13:38
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MonsterEnvy posted:Tau don't have psykers. But I don't really know much about they view other psykers. I fully understand that. The question was more does the new Tau book explain how they deal with the human psykers that are inevitably going to start popping up due to their increasing number of human subjects.
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Apr 14, 2018 13:46
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drunkencarp posted:It's funny; the books are so gorgeous and the production values in general so good that I couldn't help but assume that the rules weren't poorly thought out hot garbage. You'd think Pathfinder and 3.x woulda cured me of that fallacy. A lot of this is because RT only has one author who worked on the original system and a totally new lead developer, from a different company with very different tastes and ideas, trying to work with a system they clearly don't especially like that was originally rushed out the door to try to publish before Black Industries was shuttered. I'm sympathetic to FFG, but this is the kind of situation that produces rules that feel like a homebrew game. The big thing to ask yourself when reading it after having seen DH is how much do any of the NEW RULES add? The answer is very little. All the new subsystems are clunky and empty and a lot of the material points back to the original holes in the original base system.
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Apr 14, 2018 14:24
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It's so lucky for the Tau that the idea of communication is fundamentally alien to Tyranids because the Kroot would like immediately switch sides if given the option to follow Hive Fleets around and all-you-can-eat the places they're attacking in exchange for helping wreck the places up. As I recall their Shapers tend to try pretty hard to make sure nobody's eating dead Tyranids, because you probably don't want to be incorporating a bunch of Tyranid DNA into yourself on purpose unless you're really trying to DIY yourself into an exciting new species of Genestealer or something. Feinne fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 14:59
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Feinne posted:It's so lucky for the Tau that the idea of communication is fundamentally alien to Tyranids because the Kroot would like immediately switch sides if given the option to follow Hive Fleets around and all-you-can-eat the places they're attacking in exchange for helping wreck the places up. That would be a really stupid option as the Tyranids eat everything to the point that the plant literally turns into a barren chunk of rock.
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Apr 14, 2018 15:07
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Hunt11 posted:That would be a really stupid option as the Tyranids eat everything to the point that the plant literally turns into a barren chunk of rock. I'm pretty sure the Kroot hate the Tyranids more than anyone else, because the Tyranids are competition. Also because as we all know, predators hate aliens.
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Apr 14, 2018 15:26
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On that note, a bit of fluff that's come up over the years in Tyranid codices amuses me: minor races the galaxy over dread the Tyranids. Not simply for fear of the Tyranids themselves, but because it means the Imperium and/or the Necrons are likely to show up to oppose them. So take your pick: team up with the Imperium or Necrons now and hopefully beat back the Tyranids only to probably get invaded and exterminated by your 'saviors' shortly thereafter, or let the Tyranids eat you. There's at least one known incident of a minor race choosing to commit species suicide by blowing up their planet while the Imperium was fully engaged with the Tyranids on the planet, wiping out both the splinter fleet and the crusade force.
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Apr 14, 2018 15:57
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Joe Slowboat posted:Also because as we all know, predators hate aliens. You should be ashamed of yourself
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Apr 14, 2018 15:59
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There's a great bit in one of the Dawn of War games where a Chaos Sorceror telepathically starts issuing threats and making boasts. If you're playing as the Tau, Chaos delivers this psychic message and the Tau Commander is just. <Taps helmet>. "Say, did anyone just hear some weird buzzing on comms, almost sounded like voices? Eh, probably just interference".
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Apr 14, 2018 17:23
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Alright, I'm not gonna be covering the book that has it but I gotta share this thing with you because it redeems Rogue Trader a lot. The Auto-Temple: A fully staffed Cathedral of the God Emperor mounted on a bay near the exterior of your ship that tends to the spiritual needs of your crew and boosts morale. Sounds mundane enough? Well, it also possesses an ORBITAL DROP CAPABILITY in case your Missionary needs to call down an emergency cathedral from the stars, at which point they will proceed with shock and awe conversion and wowing the locals with the glory of the God Emperor (works especially well if the Auto Temple is targeted down on the locals' pagan shrine). In a few days, after the crazy conversion blitz, the temple can be disassembled and returned to orbit back on the ship. Yes. Orbital Cathedral Drops.
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Apr 14, 2018 17:32
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  "The God-Emperor of man demands your worship" "But we were worshipping the Emperor, what happened to the old shrine?"
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Apr 14, 2018 18:52
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:
Imagine if the local shrine was built on insufficiently sturdy ground for a massive space cathedral. Just a huge muddy sinkhole with a muddy golden sword-and-skulls statue peeking out of the top, and the Imperial missionary standing around looking sheepish.
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Apr 14, 2018 19:04
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Imperials are actually really good at orbital drop tech. They can deploy whole landing infrastructure packages from orbit and set up an invasion beachhead in an hour. It's one of the reliable STC fragments (complete records and production instructions of Dark Age technology) they have.
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Apr 14, 2018 19:14
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Similarly, the common combat transports they use are mostly exploratory rovers up-armored and given guns, because the Dark Age rovers are that good. E: Really, the fragmented 'what do we have that actually really works, what do we have that we barely understand' nature of Imperial tech and the big gaps vs. the places where they're surprisingly excellent or have managed to fill things in themselves are one of the other legitimately intriguing parts of the setting. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 19:15
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And the standard battle tank of the Imperial Guard is frontier farming equipment with an extra gun or two slapped on.
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Apr 14, 2018 19:19
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Dropping some marines and tanks and heavy weapons is a terrific way to start your day. Followed by unending waves of infantry for lunch. And missionaries at supper time to explain to the population that this could and would repeat but for the bottomless love of the Emprah.
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Apr 14, 2018 19:22
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Night10194 posted:E: Really, the fragmented 'what do we have that actually really works, what do we have that we barely understand' nature of Imperial tech and the big gaps vs. the places where they're surprisingly excellent or have managed to fill things in themselves are one of the other legitimately intriguing parts of the setting. One of the few memorable things about the novelization of Fire Warrior is getting a Tau grunt's perspective on fighting the Imperium. The protagonist notes that most Tau, when the first encounter Imperial forces, almost universally dismiss them as threats. They're huge, clunky, covered in ridiculous amounts of garish ornamentation, and are maintained by lunatics who pray to their tanks as much as they actually weld and clean. Tau veterans have to repeatedly remind the new guys that no, Imperial military equipment is legitimately dangerous and dismissing them as superstitious savages is a quick ticket to an early grave. O'Kais himself in the book scoffs at Imperial tanks... until he sees a Leman Russ at cruising speed knock an Orca out of the sky with a single shot without so much as slowing down, then decapitates a crisis suit with another shot. That's when O'Kais stops laughing at the Imperium and realizes they really aren't as dumb or backwards as they look. Something else to note along those lines is that the Imperium is really good at adapting reliable designs it has for all sorts of purposes. The humble Chimera APC, for example? The Chimera hull isn't just used for Chimeras. It's the base for the Trojan engineering vehicle, Hellhound family of light tanks (including the Bane Wolf and Devil Dog), the Hydra AA vehicle, the Basilisk SPG, the Griffon mortar carrier, the Manticore MLRS, the Medusa SPG, and the Wyvern artillery platform. When the Imperium finds something that works, they loving use it. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 19:30
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I mean the Imperium's big problem is that they overexpanded when they were at their peak and aren't able to adequately defend most of it now.
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Apr 14, 2018 19:39
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Note the Russ never acts like that anywhere else because, well, 40k is a very inconsistent setting. It's usually just shown as a solid, dependable, decent MBT and one of the greatest loves of anyone who played the Guard. It's basically the old Lasgun issue again: The lasgun is either a totally good enough, highly dependable weapon that is perfectly effective or a totally useless but at least we have a trillion of it weapon depending on what author, book, medium, edition, or whatever you're reading. Much as the Bolter can never decide if it's automatic or not, or how powerful it really is, or whatever. Like it's all made up nerd stuff at the end of the day but 40k is *extremely* dependent on which author likes which army when writing which book, much moreso than the fluff in WHFRP2e was. RT, for instance, is totally, unflinchingly positive on Rogue Traders in all of its fluff and is going to talk them up to the moon. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 19:50
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Since I'd played X-Com (the original PC game) well before I ever heard of 40K i had always imagined lasguns as the laser rifles and pistols you get pretty early on, while all that other fancy poo poo was heavy weapons or alien technology. The thing being of course that the laser rifle is actually really good, and simplifies your supply train considerably. There is a reason why you can sell vehicle-scale laser weapons to fund your entire operation.
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Apr 14, 2018 20:37
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Lasguns in X-COM original loving rocked.
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Apr 14, 2018 20:38
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Night10194 posted:It's basically the old Lasgun issue again: The lasgun is either a totally good enough, highly dependable weapon that is perfectly effective or a totally useless but at least we have a trillion of it weapon depending on what author, book, medium, edition, or whatever you're reading. You've said that the Autogun is better than the Lasgun in the RPGs, how do they differ statistically? And can the Lasgun vary the power of their shots? In some of the books part of their ubiquity comes from the fact that the power of shots can be raised or lowered depending on the type of enemy the Guard are facing.
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Apr 14, 2018 20:50
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White Coke posted:You've said that the Autogun is better than the Lasgun in the RPGs, how do they differ statistically? And can the Lasgun vary the power of their shots? In some of the books part of their ubiquity comes from the fact that the power of shots can be raised or lowered depending on the type of enemy the Guard are facing. Only in OW (where doing so makes the gun unreliable but makes it do d10+5 Pen2 instead of d10+3 Pen0, and uses ammo 4x as fast) can you do this with the lasgun. The main thing making the lasgun suck in the RPG is that it's Semiauto only, and until fairly recently full auto was king (since it was necessary to even attempt Suppression and had that huge +20 to hit). Autoguns can also use specialist ammunition, and one of the cheap specialist ammos is +3 Pen. Also, IQ Handbook for DH had Autoguns with base d10+5 Pen0 damage. The Suppression ability honestly makes the Autogun worthwhile even if the character is a terrible shot or the weapon is outmatched by the enemy. Meanwhile, the Lasgun could just plink away for d10+3 Pen0. Up against the average Ork, with its TB of 8, or a Guardsman with a total DR of 7...this is going to be kind of unimpressive when you hit an average of 1-2 times a round. If you can hit them more you have much better odds, not to mention the ammo issue since +3 Pen is often effectively +3 damage. Also, by OW, you have access to so many special and heavy weapons that Variable Settings won't save your lasgun. You'll just use a plasma rifle or whatever. Or an Autocannon. Only War is a Guardsman RPG where the lasgun never leaves the footlocker. For comparison as to why Full Auto was such a big deal: Say I have a 30 BS and I'm shooting an enemy at 40m with a DH Autogun vs. a DH Lasgun. With the Autogun, I'm firing full auto for +20, at 1/2 range for +10, so 60% to-hit. With the Lasgun, I'm at 50%, because Semiauto still takes a full action but fires at +10. Now say I roll a 40 to-hit. With the Lasgun, I'd need 20 under TN for each extra hit. With the Autogun, I not only have a better base to-hit, but I get an extra hit per 10 under. So I'm hitting 1 time with the Lasgun for a full action and 3 times (equivalent to the maximum hits I could've gotten with the lasgun!) with the autogun. E: Honestly, even once they shift it around to 'Single Shot +10, Semi +0, Full Auto -10, all are now a Half Action' in Black Crusade, having all the fire rate options is STILL vastly desirable. The only thing that competed with Full Auto in DH/RT/DW was Accurate weapons, since they got a similar to-hit-per-action bonus (+10 for half-action aim, +10 for Accurate) while having +d10 damage per 20 under TN up to 2d10 if and only if they were a Basic (rifle-sized) weapon, letting your rifle potentially punch individual hard targets and giving it good to-hit odds. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 20:54
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Night10194 posted:Note the Russ never acts like that anywhere else because, well, 40k is a very inconsistent setting. On that note, for a repurposed expedition rover the Imperium sure gets a shitload of use out of the Rhino. The following are all based on the Rhino chassis and use it as a base: Razorback Predator Immolator Repressor Vindicator Whirlwind Saber Exorcist Hunter Stalker Grav-Rhino Repulsor When you've got something that works...
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Apr 14, 2018 21:23
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When the Tau had their big first contact War with the Imperium and managed to force them into retreat one of the first things they did was check out Imperial tech. Tau Codex 8th posted:In the aftermath, the Ethereals demanded a full study of captives There is also possibly some Chaos Tau from the ones that got trapped in the Warp. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 21:34
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Night10194 posted:Lasguns in X-COM original loving rocked.
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Apr 14, 2018 21:50
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"I don't want to breach that building, there could be a xeno with a rifle in there." "Toss a detpack in the window and hose the smoke down with HE cannon fire and lasers." Old X-COM would have none of this 'precision commando' bullshit modern X-COM does!
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Apr 14, 2018 21:52
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Deptfordx posted:There's a great bit in one of the Dawn of War games where a Chaos Sorceror telepathically starts issuing threats and making boasts. It gets even better as the Chaos Sorceror keeps trying to taunt the Tau Commander, and eventually goes "Alien? Alien? You can hear me, right?" and the Tau Commander's like "Could someone please shut off that interference?"
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Apr 14, 2018 23:31
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Night10194 posted:"I don't want to breach that building, there could be a xeno with a rifle in there." "Toss a detpack in the window and hose the smoke down with HE cannon fire and lasers." I'm actually kind of surprised no one's tried to make an X-COM RPG, even as a fan thing of some sort, that I've stumbled across. I've made some hacks myself(mostly based off of AFMBE), to accomodate X-COM games, it's not exactly difficult(aside from eyeballing difficulties and figuring out how Psi works best), but you'd figure someone would have at least decided to license it out to wring some PnP money from the crossover between tactical turn-based nerds and PnP RPG nerds, which I imagine to be pretty broad.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:42
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PurpleXVI posted:I'm actually kind of surprised no one's tried to make an X-COM RPG, even as a fan thing of some sort, that I've stumbled across. I've made some hacks myself(mostly based off of AFMBE), to accomodate X-COM games, it's not exactly difficult(aside from eyeballing difficulties and figuring out how Psi works best), but you'd figure someone would have at least decided to license it out to wring some PnP money from the crossover between tactical turn-based nerds and PnP RPG nerds, which I imagine to be pretty broad. I've seen it done just using Hunter: The Vigil rules.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:49
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Is it even role playing? The game is purely tactical.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:54
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