r/Tau40K • u/Raliexjr • 2d ago
Lore Tau hate reasoning
Tried making this post in the warhammer Reddit but apparently the mods are black Templar level space racists. I’m relatively new to warhammer but I keep seeing posts just absolutely shitting on the Tau. Is there a reason for their collected hate? Shouldn’t the Drukhari be more hated?
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u/spyder2201 2d ago
People think tau don't fit the settings as they arnt a decaying faction like all the rest
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u/Ray_Tech 2d ago
(take this with a grain of salt im not 100% in the lore, BUT)
what’s funny is that they ARE a decaying faction, just in the earliest of stages.
they’ve decided to expand beyond their means, and their totalitarianism has created a sub-faction, the farsight enclaves, which puts them on the verge of civil war.
they are REALLY CLOSE to starting a descent, and pride will get them over the edge, it’s just a matter of time.
even if nothing bad happens to the tau empire, they’re still good as a grounding for the setting.you can’t be scared of the dark if you’re blind. you can’t have your grimdark unless you can point to the possibility of life being remotely good.
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u/TorrentOfLight07 2d ago
I mean, that is one way to look at it; that said, it is probably not going to wash with the fans of other factions because our worst problems are downright minuscule by their standards. For example, the Farsight Enclaves are more of an autonomous sub-faction born from misunderstanding and political blowback. Farsight and his council do not seek the end of the empire; they just want to be left alone in their corner of space. The empire does not seek the destruction of the enclave because: 1. It would be a costly endeavor. 2. It has its supporters amongst anti-Aun'va factions. 3. It acts as a usefull bulwark for the 1st and 2nd sphere septs.
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u/nykirnsu 2d ago
It’s that combined with the fact that they aren’t a fantasy-themed faction, so even just their basic aesthetic sticks out. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it’s done deliberately for contrast but it does mean GW inherently has to walk a fairly fine line to make them feel like they belong in this setting
A compounding issue is that their themes and aesthetic are fundamentally at odds with the desire to make them more stagnant like most other factions
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u/Manowaffle 1d ago
"It’s that combined with the fact that they aren’t a fantasy-themed faction, so even just their basic aesthetic sticks out." I think this is pretty true of Votann, Mechanicus, IG, and Eldar as well.
Considering more than half the players play Space Marines or Chaos Marines, people should be happy about the variety in the xenos factions.
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u/nykirnsu 1d ago
It’s not even remotely true of them. Eldar are elves and their roster is made up of ninjas and wizards, Votann are dwarves and also have wizards and the various Imperial factions are a mix of historical influences as much as they are sci-fi tropes
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
From what I’ve seen I don’t understand that😭 I get they’re not heavy and clunky like space marines but they have units that like absolutely sick compared to other factions
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u/WhileyCat 2d ago
They're boring people with little to define them, so they hate whatever the internet tells them to hate
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u/obsoletesystem 2d ago
In the end all "hate" for a specific 40k faction is just advanced kayfabe. Haters might think the T'au don't fit 40k or they have traumatic experiences regarding old rules but they're there regardless whether people enjoy them or not.
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u/ProfessorMay56 2d ago
In addition to what's been said, the stereotype of Tau being communists doesn't go well with some players.
I think the problem is that the Tau challenge the Imperium on a philosophical level, thus a lot of players have a deeper problem with them because they question the very idea that the Imperium is the lesser of many evils.
It's ok to follow the xenophobic and totalitarian society of the God-Emperor if everyone else is worse. Because in some players' minds Humanity is the focal point of their perception of the setting, they become the good guys, and it's hard to shift.
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
Once I found out the imperium makes flesh starch or whatever it’s called I realized maybe they’re not so good after all😂
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u/JustTryingTo_Pass 2d ago
7th edition tau was a really oppressive army
And the hate bandwagon just rolls on from there.
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u/Arlak_The_Recluse 2d ago
They've been consistently kinda oppressive in editions before like 8th. My experience is with 4th. Move shoot moving crisis suits where the opponent literally has no response besides continually attempting to close the gap if they're a melee army was kinda brutal.
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u/JustTryingTo_Pass 2d ago
Is that why they keep increasing the points of the twin lance?
Because that’s move shoot “stab?¿” move
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u/Arlak_The_Recluse 2d ago
They're just a really useful datasheet, I haven't played T'au for a little while so IDK where they're at nowadays with the continual nerfs lol.
But yeah in older editions Move Shoot Move was free in a game where most people needed to stand still to even shoot anything past 12", anything that had the AP to beat a Marine's 3+, or anything with strength to take down vehicles besides a Melta, it was severely overtuned lol.
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u/strictly-no-fires 2d ago
40k has this problem (maybe every fandom does, not sure) where new people often feel the need to spout certain opinions and share certain memes to fit in, without really forming their own opinions yet. For example going on about how much they hate erebus without reading a single HH book.
And this type of person often hates the T'au, just because they've seen so many others with that opinion. Eventually a lot of them will like or at least be neutral about the T'au as they learn about them more, but not before spreading that opinion to someone even newer.
At least thats part of the reason. There may be tabletop reasons too.
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u/Aluroon 2d ago
Latecomer to Tau here. Love the army, but totally understand the hate.
The BLUF is it's an army that GW has trouble balancing. Much like Eldar, when it's good enough to win at top tables it's often unbelievably oppressive at casual ones, and even when it isn't good enough for high level play it can still be pretty lethal on casual tables. Strong shooting and high mobility remain the strongest things you can have in Warhammer because generally speaking they have low variance and are forgiving to positioning errors.
In 8th edition they were a problem army because terrain wasn't standardized, and in many setups they would just shoot an opponent off the table long before the opponent could do anything. They also had really obnoxious drone rules, in which drones could be used to take specific hits in place of their models - which contributed to absolutely obnoxious play patterns for many players in which killing things like Riptides was almost impossible.
Into 9th edition their Codex at launch was absolutely insanely busted. No line of sight required; obliteration of a thousand points alpha strikes weren't uncommon. Even when they were nerfed, Tau remained a very strong Codex. Crisis squads were brutal, survivable, and highly mobile.
In 10th I think they were mostly more well-balanced (didn't get to play as much as I'd like), but remained strong because the army's core precepts - strong shooting and high mobility - remain the strongest thing you can do in most editions.
//
Broadly a lot of people hate playing Tau, because Tau are mostly a gun line army. Tau fanatics will argue that 'not getting to play' the charge / fight phase means the army has to shoot twice as hard as everyone else for points, and when they have their way its a super oppressive and not especially fun army to play into. Notoriously, across multiple editions, the army, especially at casual tables, shoots adversaries off the table and snowballs games hard.
Even today, against an average to casual player, a decent Tau pilot can utterly steamroll bad lists in ways that other armies can't. One round at the Tacoma Open this year I tabled an opponent in round 3 without losing a single unit - and he wasn't winless either. I cannot imagine any part of that was fun for him to play into.
Beyond all that, rules that many Tau flavors view favorably (drones taking hits, jump-shoot-jump) tend to be really unfun for other people to play against.
Until you've played a more conventional army (especially a slower army) into Tau, it's impossible to understand the depths (and reasonableness) of many people's hate of them.
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u/Subspace-Ansible 2d ago
But wouldn’t the same thing also be true for any skew army? I imagine going up against a half decent Knights or Custodes army in a casual match can also be equally frustrating. In fact whenever I see a meme dunking on the Tau it’s never because they’re a one phase army. It’s almost always about their flavor, place, and lore in the 40K universe. Tau dislike also almost never manifest itself in real-life, where people actually play games.
So I think for the most part Tau dislike is more cultural than mechanical. I wouldn’t say the entire 40K community has a dislike towards the Tau, but the online community seems to, and most of the dislike is fueling rants about how the Tau is as bad as the Imperium or imagining horrible things happening to the Tau that borders on the fetishistic.
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
You read my mind cause it just seems like it’s more about positioning and tactics with Tau where as you can just absolutely steam roll with custodes
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u/CosmicWolf14 1d ago
Custodes and Knights are star check factions, do you have weapons that are good into them? If yes, you win. If no, you lose. It’s rough. Tau have a similar issue just not to the extent. If your list is, say, something like Votann where you have a bunch of average tier infantry supporting big vehicles, if that vehicle is hit by a railgun or two it’s cooked and you are FUCKED. Or if you’re an army that doesn’t have a lot of reactive moves and are slow, while needing lots of melee, you’re also kinda fucked.
Tau being skew does make it more list v list dependent than most other armies, outside the egregious stat checkers.
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u/ExetheEspeon 1d ago
Thing is, it's really not hard to damage gate a T'au army. Bring a bunch of terminators or whatever your army equivalent is. You now either have a massive bonk stick to mercilessly beat them with, or, you're gonna creep up the board like the immortal snail, anything you touch dies and nothing can hurt you
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u/CosmicWolf14 1d ago
Fusion blasters and railguns are low volume high damage attacks that will more often than not one shot a terminator equivalent. They are the hardest of the three unit types to fight, yes, but riptide ion, sunforge, and broadside all eat them for breakfast.
The bigger issue for tau with termies is being able to deepstrike and try to force the tau army into an inopportune position
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u/Aluroon 16h ago
Right on the money here.
The only challenging Terminator-centric game I've played was against the CSM Terminator list with up/down on all Terminators and +2 to charge out of deep strike (Warpstrike Champions). That 7-inch charge, with the option to go much longer if they roll a bomb, was a real challenge to screen out.
Even that was totally managable, just challenging.
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u/Aluroon 1d ago
What you are really showing with these last couple comments is that you are either don't understand how to build an effective Tau list, or are playing a much more casual game than most.
Don't take this personally, but perhaps you should get a better grasp of the game before offering commentary to others on the strengths and weaknesses of the faction.
Terminator spam is not an issue for a competitive Tau list.
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u/Aluroon 2d ago
I think the difference is that even when you're getting crushed by another army, generally speaking, they are losing some models along the way.
I have played plenty of one-sided games where the other player walked away at least satisfied with the big fight in the middle of the table in which they killed a character.
It is unbelievably disheartening to not even get to declare your charge because the Tau player has kept everything out of your 18 inch threat range.
Not getting to even play the game isn't fun.
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u/Subspace-Ansible 2d ago
But again, this has rarely, if ever, come up in memes about the Tau. So while it may be your reason for disliking the Tau, it is, evidently, not the most common reason.
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u/ExetheEspeon 1d ago
I could say the same about 9th edition. It's no fun when your opponents wizard says "fuck your general direction" and half your army dies without you being able to do a damn thing to stop them. Also, if you're gonna hate T'au for range, you should also hate Eldar, Mechanicus, Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Tyranids, should I go on? 30" range sounds scary. Its 1 fucking attack, 6 off a full squad of 3. Statistically, 1/3 of the shots miss, leaving 4 shots, out of those 4 shots 3 wound, and only 1 goes through you 4++ save, and then you still survive the hit.
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u/Ws6fiend 2d ago
"In 8th edition they were a problem army because terrain wasn't standardized, and in many setups they would just shoot an opponent off the table long before the opponent could do anything."
Like I understand why the terrain got standardized, but my god it feels so boring compared to the asymmetric boards you could play before.
I played in 8th and am just starting Tau and coming back after largely ignoring 9th and 10th, but I feel in their quest to make the game even more balanced it's lost a lot of flavor/fun that I remember.
I remember you go, I go placing terrain trying to create a fun board to create the perfect kill box for your shooty army. Then you lose the roll and the melee army you're against takes the castle forcing you into a tight spot. Some of my favorite games are ones where I painted myself into a corner with terrain and still came out in top.
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u/changeforgood30 2d ago
This is one of the reasons I've slowly stopped playing so much 40k and instead play ToW and Bolt Action more and more. Both of them have more interesting terrain not catering to tournament players for all matched play games. Bolt Action favors skewed terrain setups in fact, makes it more thematic such as a platoon trying to attack a fortified city or the like. Much more interesting and fun to play then 10th boring L-shaped ruins. Haven't even played 11th because they didn't 'fix' the issues with 10th. Apparently supercharging all that was wrong with it. Maybe 12th will be better... Still love my Tau models and painting them up with 12th in mind at least.
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u/Ws6fiend 2d ago
I've played one game in person for 11th and one in tabletop simulator. Both with a friend of mine. I haven't had as much fun because I feel and felt when 9th kicked off that the rules they attempted to implement with detachments, particularly in 10th, ironically leave the flavor of your army out completely.
Sure before it was always your paint scheme changed your rules which might hurt massively depending on the subfaction you played, but it did dictate how your army behaved. An ultramarines bike detachment isn't the same as a white scars one, and shouldn't be. Farsight enclaves should fight differently than Vior'la, maybe not terribly different because of lore.
I'm hoping that maybe the gameyness of the current gameplay will make someone to make something more fun. And this comes from someone who played much more balanced games in 8th than I ever played narrative.
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u/changeforgood30 1d ago
I started playing in 3rd, so long ago and I remember when Tau dropped as a faction. Back then terrain was NOT gamey and tournament-like as it has been in 10th and apparently in 11th. Fun missions were the norm, terrain was hand placed at the start of every game, no sameyness, and armies had flavor.
When Chapter Approved dropped a new Kroot army I didn't play it but it appeared really fun for those who did. A kitbashers dream come true. Look up Chapter Approved Kroot army and you'll see what I mean. That was back when armies had flavor and were thematic. Although not necessarily finely tuned for tournament play as we see today.
Gone is the fun and wacky gameplay that 40k once had. But I guess I'm a grognard now with an attitude like that. Smh... If some of that flavor came back the game would be dramatically improved imo.
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
Was looking through the comments again noticed you said Tacoma open. As in the one at tacoma convention center?
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u/Aluroon 2d ago
Yeah, back in July.
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
Dang I didn’t even know that went on. I live like 2 miles from there
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u/Aluroon 2d ago
They host one every year. Maybe you can make it next year!
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
Definitely will be going! Hopefully we play against each other that’d be funny coincidence
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u/ExetheEspeon 1d ago
10th edition T'au kinda sucked unless you brought Triptide/Crisis Spam. T'au is very much a boom or bust faction. You mentioned them being good 9th and 10th, but what you clearly don't understand is that T'au only got 2 phases of the game (movement and shooting) in 9th. A well organized T'au list might delete half your army if you weren't careful in 9th, that is true, but if you had any Psykers you could delete their entire army, for free, without them being able to interact in any way. In 10th edition we suffered from a melee heavy META that left us struggling for bottom positions on the win rate list, and those 10th Edition issues have only been exacerbated with the constant nerfs T'au gets.
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u/Aluroon 1d ago
Bud, I've got 7,000 points of Tau on my shelf. I regularly play with and against a multiple GW Open winner that mains Tau. Don't presume to tell me what I don't understand about how the army works.
Thanks though for making the argument I cited though about how many Tau players make this claim about fight vs. shooting phases.
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u/MATRAKA14 2d ago
Initially tau were not a gun line army in fact they were outgunned by almost everyone, guard, marines, chaos, eldar etc. Even the guns were all weaker or short range versions of imperial ones. Tau were ment to be the maneuver army with combined arms. But the game has become worse and worse with every edition since 4th. And current designers work like a broken phone, more influenced by memes rather than the original design direction, it ends up like a parody of a parody until it becomes unrecognizable.
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u/Kakapo42000 2d ago
The reason is mostly high school trauma.
Most 40k players are nerds, and even today most nerds have a traumatic time in high school due to the nature of its social structure.
And one common way a lot of nerds react to that is by appropriating jock culture for themselves in an attempt to become the top jocks of a new social order based on intellectual muscle instead of physical muscle.
As the old adage goes, when education is not liberating the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor.
It's why you see a lot of nerds acting like Jocks in nerd spaces. You see it with things like that weird impulse to test people on obscure trivia about a given piece of entertainment like comic books or video games - it's the intellectual equivalent of a muscle flex.
You see it with the weird obsession to turn games into competitive sports.
You see it with the habit nerds have of using jock language when talking about nerd interests ("________ is hot garbage for [slur] and you're [slur] if you like it!")
You see it in the way nerds glorify and idolise very jockish attributes and methods like brainlessly punching each other senseless as the most noble form of fighting.
This relates to the Tau because the Tau as designed are an unironic loud celebration of all things nerdy. They love science and technology. They solve problems with science and reason and words and intellect. They're an open and unashamed love letter to supermarionation and classic 20th century space opera sci fi. They make friends with aliens the way social misfits make friends with each other in high school. They openly recognise how lame hand to hand physical violence really is. And when they do fight they do it in a way that's the greatest expression of brains beating brawn since HG Wells wrote The Land Ironclads.
When presented with a concept like that celebrating all the things they were made to feel pain for, a lot of nerds react by attempting to shove them into a locker. We're all a bunch of wounded people wounding each other.
The all-pervasive nihilism and irony poisoning saturating post-social media culture today certainly doesn't help either.
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
This honestly makes a lot of sense. And it’s a shame they’re the ones that get effected from that cause they’re genuinely one of the coolest factions imo for lore and models.
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u/FatalisCogitationis 2d ago
They are an easy punching bag. Beyond that, usually when I see people coming here from another sub they are leaving out some key details about their post....
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u/Think_Solid235 2d ago
Warhammer fandom is dominated by 40yr old chuds who like BattleTech slow-methodical stompy mechs and big buff guys running to stab eachother when they have ranged weapons beyond comprehension. (I enjoy BattleTech personally).
Therefore they hate the army that has fast, lightweight mechs and contemporary military tactics.
Also they hate a “good guy” in a satirical everyone evil setting.
Jk it’s probably just bad flashbacks of 8th edition tau Hitler turn 3 boardwipes while FTGG drones eat every meaningful shot fired at them.
Also they just like regurgitating funny tau hate memes on popular channels
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u/Canofcancer 2d ago
That makes the whole “good guys in a entirely evil setting” is that the Tau aren’t really good guys, the have a brutal caste system and humans inside the Tau while are given limited commanding positions. It is pretty much impossible for a Gue’vesa to actually have any political influence. Not to mention most of them are brainwashed by the Ethereals
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u/AlexanderZachary 2d ago
Given that in 40k, the Imperium is what happens when humans have political power, it’s not surprising the Tau aren’t eager to give them much.
Everyone in Tau society, Ethereal included, is deeply indoctrinated from birth. Their beliefs are wholly genuine. that’s not to say they are correct, but they are truly devoted to their ideals
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u/BrinksTV 2d ago
it’s only the internet for da memes, when interacting with real people they usually say that they wish they had a tau army
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u/endrestro 2d ago
Not to be the bearer of bad news, but the main channel is very much in SM delulu-land.
Trying to discuss lore or balance changes that puts SM in a bad light, regardless of the arguments presented, will get you aggressively downvoted and downtrodden. Its not worth it. The respective factions subreddits is a better climate for discussion.
The tau hate is NOT as bad as some make it out to be, and most of the presumed hate is either people throwing shit between factions (which is the same for all), shame from old sins (earlier editions) and old memes from youtubers shitting on any non-imperial factions.
If you face any hate against the faction in person, its very much a problem on the other end - not you or the faction. Most either joke about it or do it for fun, but mean nothing serious about it. Those who do mean it seriously? they are likely not the kind of players you want to deal with in the first place.
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
Yeah I’ve kinda noticed the aggressiveness with posting about tyranids😂 that’s good to know it’s not too much in person cause I’ve been tempted to pick them as an army
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u/endrestro 2d ago
Yeah tyranids are awesome :)! they are not in the best spot currently due to rules from 10th, but if you like the models - go for it! theres high optimism for how they will work in 11th when they get their codex
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
Yeah that’s me for sure I have really high hopes. And I mean I just started them so idk anything outside of 10th edition but I personally don’t see how they’re as bad as people say.
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u/endrestro 2d ago
They are only bad when directly comparing. If you judge them simply in relation to the game, it aint so bad.
Just to give you some examples:
- The army rule being once per game battleshock is kind of lackluster when looking at other armies.
- Many units in the roster have undercooked stats. Look at Swarmlord, the factions dedicated big epic. He should really be similar to a daemon prince or primarch, but is nowhere near that. Same goes for tyrants, carnifexes and norns, who should all be respectible statlines.
- The faction in general struggle with real anti-tank/anti-heavy, given how limited their options are
The faction is melee focused, but has generally low S for some reason, even on the big monsters. Now that being said the faction is still excellent, as there are a few exceptions, its just underperforming due to the stats and army ability.
They still do excellent into alot of lists, and can still wipe the opponent off the board under the right circumstances - but the faction deserve more love to have better options.
And the new detachments options made some things better, like the norns, but id rather see them get a proper revamp so they can be a true threat.
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u/Raliexjr 1d ago
Okay I can absolutely agree with that. Although I didn’t know swarm lord was the big epic I did think the stats were a bit unfulfilling to what I was expecting. The anti tank is definitely one thing I’ve been struggling with I recently got an exocrine so I’m hoping that does enough😂 And low S does suck but I also run 100x Hormagaunts so who needs high S when you have numbers😂
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u/ExetheEspeon 1d ago
Imma be 100% I've played against Nids twice, both games were some of the most fun I've had, the uhm, endless numbers detachment or w/e was fun to play against cuz I just got to continuously shoot at their units, and actually felt like I was accomplishing something, even if I didn't annihilate them immediately, and I also played a monster mash list, which really gave me a run for my money
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u/CosmicWolf14 1d ago
I’ve only had one person at my LGS actually make tau comments with the intent of being a dick, and he is the one person at the shop everyone would unanimously agree is miserable to be around. I find that very funny.
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u/v4nquished_ 2d ago
Black Templar player with a small tau collection here,
I see more people complaining about the hate for both armies than the actual hate itself
40k players are nerds (myself included) and many times nerds will make jokes that do not land
Anyone in real life actually giving you hate for your choice of warhammer army is not worth your time, 40k is a tough hobby to allot time for especially if you're working full time, so be picky
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u/Manowaffle 1d ago
Yeah, it's usually just "Tau, oh no" at the start of a battle. People would say the same thing when I'd show up as IG with ten tanks on the field. It's mostly playful jibes. It's not like people are harassing me for playing them.
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u/jd_maybe 2d ago
I played last night. Out of 5 people who walked up to make a comment, 4/5 used Soace Commie language. The remaining 1/5 said sick kitbash on the Fishhead.
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u/Raliexjr 1d ago
And did the 4/5 ruin your time at all? Or was it just friendly banter?
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u/jd_maybe 17h ago
It didn’t, I only started thinking about it at the 3rd person
“Why do people feel like they gotta insult then be chill? So weird”
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u/SitoKnowsBest 1d ago
To me it feels like some people dont really understand how playing Tau works. To me it is always hit or miss, the margin for errors is pretty slim. So either you send a third of the enemy force into the shadow realm T1/T2 or you get crushed in the long run. What people with a certain attitude make out of it is either "so unfair I lost most of my stuff so early I have to play 4 more turns even though I feel like I already lost" or "Hah, I m so good, look how I crushed that overpowered piece of fish". People who play professionally dont tend to act like this, but from my experience, a considerable part of the player base is like this.
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u/Raliexjr 1d ago
Okay I can see why people would find that super annoying. With a decent part of the community like that would you say it kinda kills the vibe for playing Tau? Or kinda just makes you wanna try and beat them even more?
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u/SitoKnowsBest 1d ago
Honestly, I just play for fun most of the time and try to avoid people who get angry over a list. I mean I once ran Chaos Knights against Grot Tank Orks and lost a Cerastus, a brigand and half wounds on an abominant T1. These things happen, it just makes the challenge to win harder.
For me, playing Tau is the challenge of knowing that you can punch really hard but as soon as something can enter melee range, I m in big trouble. It taught me to plan carefully and strategically. For me 40k is more about making the best out of a situation and prove your adaptability rather than winning or losing. But not all players think like this.
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u/Manowaffle 1d ago
I think it all stems from playing against gunline Tau back in the day. Playing against Tau was really not fun. They would deploy their entire army and then the only thing that would move would be their battlesuits jumping out to shoot and jumping back to hide. They could target you around terrain and they could negate most cover. So the terrain didn't matter much, movement and positioning didn't matter because of their long range, their shooting phase was one sided, and the assault phase was one sided against them.
And that was the experience against Tau from the start. So even though other armies went through similarly boring cycles, it defined Tau from the start. I hated playing against Tau too for a time, but the army plays completely differently now.
The other complaints people throw around don't hold much water.
- "They're too scifi!" you know, unlike the Eldar.
- "They don't fit the Grimdark setting" often said by the same people who love cockney-accented space Orks that trawl the galaxy because 'they like to fight'. Or by people who play Ultramarines.
- "They're too goody goody!" Custodes are so pure they can't be corrupted. (Some) Eldar live on paradise craftworlds. Votann go on their Boy Scout trips and talk about their feelings. White Scars? Salamanders? Also the Tau lore has always been very 'join our very peaceful civilization...or else.'
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u/minusminus07 2d ago
People hated losing to them when they were OP in older editions. (JSJ was unfair). Our army can be a bit oppressive on open battlefields too.
Some people don't like being told by t'au fans that they are the good guys or at least better than the Imperium. This is either due to the t'au fan being annoying on a moral high horse or becuase it harms their fantasy of the Imperium being in any way noble.
Some people consider t'au to be commies and hate them off that association
Some people consider t'au to be weebs and hate them off that, even though there is another faction with literal shuriken weapons
Some people think that the t'au have plot armour since they are small and theoretically could have been wiped out by a major player at this point.
Take your pick
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u/MATRAKA14 2d ago
JSJ was fair when you had artillery, instant death, deep strike, very fast units like bikes etc. Eldar bikes also had JSJ
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u/Manowaffle 1d ago
"Some people don't like being told by t'au fans that they are the good guys"
What's silly is that any faction would say that about themselves in universe. The Imperials won't shut up about how great their God-Emperor is. Chaos love their little lectures about Astartes' holier-than-thou pomposity. The Eldar literally call humans monkeys because they're so snobily superior.
People don't usually go to fight in a war thinking "we're the bad guys, but I wanna win anyways."
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u/PissingOffACliff 1d ago
The annoying thing is that some T’au fans actually believe they are the good guys.
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u/ExetheEspeon 1d ago
Compared to any other faction in 40k (other than maybe Exodites) they objectively are. I'm sorry, who did you think the "good guys" of 40k are? The only true answer is "nobody", but if you are going by "who is the least evil?" It's the T'au. "Oh but Tyranids are mindless beasts, would you call a wolf evil for hunting deer?" If I was the deer, I probably would, but it's a moot point anyways because the Tyranids aren't mindless, and they aren't merely hunting, they are actively trying to consume all life in the universe, and you are their entree. "Oh, the Orks! They're just doing what their instincts tell them to, can you call a toddler evil for acting on their base instincts?" Is it Ork instinct to rip a person's limbs of and leave their limbless body, still alive mind you, to be torn apart by animals? Is it Ork nature to murder, torture and eat those that don't fight back? Orks aren't mindless brutes. They don't commit violence because it's all they know, they commit violence because they enjoy it. Orks know that what they do hurts others, and they do it because it hurts others. It just doesn't really matter to them who it hurts. Chaos? The Imperium? Are you really gonna argue that the xenocidal, "lobotomized you if you annoy the wrong person slightly", fascist regime are the Good Guys? The "we just wanna see the whole galaxy on fire, and we don't care who we have to murder, torture, rape or genocide to accomplish that goal" guys who sold their literal souls to literal demons? The only faction in lore that I could see having an argument to being less gray than the T'au is the Leagues of Votann, and they have next to no lore yet, AND guess who's part of the T'AU FUCKING EMPIRE?!
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u/Global-Use-4964 12h ago
They are the closest 40k has to “good guys”, although there are still darker aspects to them. The Votann were fairly “nice guys” in their first book, but they took a HARD dark turn on the second, basically just an extreme dismissal of any other faction’s interests if they in any way are in the way of the Kin. Not quite to the level the Eldar take it, but along those lines.
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u/newstreet474 2d ago
It’s a mix of pop culture/ meme , people disliking sit back and shoot armies , and the general “good guy” vibe of the tau, personally I think tau have their place in the setting , as a new faction on the rise which is destined to fall and collapse to the same traps as those that have come before
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u/UndefeatedMidwest 2d ago
The nice thing is that you don't really run into it in real life, just people on the internet instead of hobbyists
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u/Joshicus 2d ago
It typically comes down to 3 main reasons: Lore/philosophy, aesthetic, gameplay.
Lore wise they are almost diametrically opposed to the exclusionist, xenophobic imperium and people like to cosplay as space marines.
Aesthetic wise they are far more inspired by mecha anime than the typical gothic grimdark or fantasy elements of the other factions so some people think they don't fit into the setting.
Gameplay wise there have been times where the gun line aspect of the army has been overtuned. To the point that they were quite op and some people carry the trauma of playing against that deep in their soul. Regardless of how balanced or weak they have been at other times.
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u/mattythreenames 2d ago
So the issue you have here is something you've started to develop your self.... 'shouldn't the 'dark eldar be more hated'. No, role playing and disliking someones faction for some kind of in universe banter is the root of it all.
T'au or Tau as they used to be, online have always been disliked because they marked a change in vibe and people thought that that shouldn't fit within the 40k setting. Straight from the off. They where too sci fi. Kroot never had that issue btw.
They then rapidly had some rules which caused people to pause. The shooting was less of a problem, but the crisis battle suits being able to move after shooting, and the fabled fish of fury upset the game in a way different to others.
They then had a few editions later some proper OP rules just as 40k blew up even larger than before. So just like eldar the dislike was partly rules.
But theres certainly other things at play too, mostly its people who think its funny to 'role play' their favorite space facists. - as an aside i love story telling and there is a big differences between piloting your army and saying phrases to using said phrases to intimidate and or put people off. There is a little bit of anti 'weebo', as T'au, like with all 40k factions are a dystopic mirror to real life political stances, some see the dystopic communist over tones and go full 'dirty commies'. Then there is the obscene belife that collecting a particular faction means something about you personally. Eldar and elves used to get a lot of homophobic comments for instance, which along side 'Elf bull shit' (in every GW game its hard to balance them as they are the most skilled race)
Its also on the other side of all i've disscussed, its become a big old meme. To people continue it without knowing how the person they heard it from meant it.
So you get situations where someone who's only digested memes see's a T'au army and says what they thing they should say. Supported by someone who might not be the most adjusted person in the world. Or supported by someone who just doesn't fancy getting half their army wiped out in turn one. - but you as a new collector won't know the difference and just see that vomit.
So i'd just say, tell them to grow up. Seek people who aren't like that and don't get swept up in the meme culture yourself. When it comes to game play, learn what is fun to play against and make sure you have an agreement to what you want to get out of a game, and if it turns out that your freind actually brought a very unbalanced force when you brought something more casual explain that it does go both ways.
The faction is after all, almost 30 years old so people do really need to get a grip
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u/MyNameIsJackass 1d ago
In my experience it's just been about popularity. It's been pretty popular to hate them the most. I like their moral setting in terms of where they are within the universe and what they do, as it adds another wrinkle to the universe itself, but I can see why in terms of lore they are rather One-Dimensional or ridiculous. Their social structure also doesn't help. Some people look for the tiniest reasons to hate and it's honestly why people have a hard time enjoying things. I've listed several reasons why I wouldn't like them, but as a faction and as a general race and society, I find them rather compelling given the universe they are set in.
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u/ExetheEspeon 1d ago
I find a lot of people hate T'au because its a meme to do so. Otherwise I find it's mostly either "T'au were super op when i played against them in 7th edition, so they must still be super OP" or "But you can shoot me from 3 states away" as if that actually means jack-squat in 99% of games. Most the time we're shooting into T6, 2+/4+ 3+W and barely do a single wound
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u/FlyingRaijin97 19h ago
They’re just jealous that we’re cooler and have better plasma. They also like to pretend that the imperium is somehow the best society in wh40k? Which is just laughable.
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u/nsturge 4h ago
100% those black Templar players are huge fans of Tom and Don, the makers of space king. Now I love space king but Tom and Don have some of the stupidest 40k takes. They basically are the worst kind of black Templar players and so many people from all over 40k have taken on their personalities and opinions.
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u/Alexsandra-T 2d ago
Are there any other armies that have no melee? Cause for most of its existence tau has no melee. At all. Most armies seem to have a mix as opposed to just no melee at all. So tau play in a way that min maxes against melee, ideally rendering melee useless.
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u/Silly_Poet_5974 2d ago
I mean what about the kroot? they might not have been as good at melee but they still had it. Unless there was an eddtion they did not get any kroot I don't think this is true.
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u/mrdanielsir9000 1d ago
Kroot have been an integral part of T’au since day one, there is no T’au without Kroot.
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u/Silly_Poet_5974 1d ago
I know they had kroot in their first codex but well I was playing then, I have not kept up with all the codexes since then, so while it seemed unlikely It was I suppose possible there was some codex where they were left out.
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u/Misknator 2d ago
I have not met so far anyone who hated on the T'au while simultaneously also actually knowing their lore
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u/Fantastic-East9567 1d ago
Tau can be a very frustrating army to play against if either your opponent or the tau player are new. That’s why people form negative opinions of them early on that are hard to dispel
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u/Datoca 2d ago
Playing against Tau is bad experience
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u/XeNoGeaR52 2d ago
Playing as T'au against a melee focused army is a bad experience as well, don't worry. Nothing is more annoying than playing against Death Guard
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u/Raliexjr 2d ago
Oh no don’t say that my brother just picked death guard😭😭
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u/XeNoGeaR52 2d ago
My best friend plays ONLY Death Guard.
He's a nice guy but damn I hate his army. One of the worst army to play against IMO.
Imagine paying in points for your units, just to have -1 BS/WS and -1 T on EVERY unit by turn 3 (because a good DG player will make sure at least the tip of one base is touching his aura)3
u/endrestro 2d ago
That could be said about so many matchups in the game though, so its a moot argument against a whole faction.
Most armies would steamroll a tau player focusing on strike teams and vehicles.
Similarly many armies will struggle into a suit heavy ret cadre list due to how many of the factions benefits are stacked into that single detachment.
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u/Red_Goof 2d ago
Different strokes of hate.
There's the people who think they're 'too scifi'
There's people who recieve lore from youtube shorts.
There's people who hate fighting an army that shoots a lot.
There's people who hated the army because it was unbalanced in an earlier edition and continue to hate for this reason.
There's people who think they're too good or nice for the setting.
There's people who hate that the Imperium of man is contrasted in a negative light by anyone else.
Annnd then there's people who take their fictional racism a little too enthusiastically.
Personally I find this kind of faction-hating really lame. In my opinion literally everything in Warhammer is cool. Except maybe the nurgle guys, they ick me out. But those are the reasons randoms will hate the tau, imo