Why Tau Are My Favorite: Grimdark is Exhausting [cc]

As for giving my personal take, yeah. I think GW has just been rewriting the game over and over for the sake of profit instead of actually improving it. Especially because as soon as a new edition comes over (9th to 10th) all the previous rulebooks become useless.
0:50 when you mention how Warhammer always has hamfisted "bad endings", it made me think of the ending of Space Marine. Captain Titus fights a bunch of orks, then fights chaos. And instead of being regarded as a war hero after all the work he's done, he gets arrested by the inquisition for "suspicion" of chaos corruption.
2:00 about Cadia, it's not just because the Imperium has millions of worlds. But also because worlds getting blown up or taken by Chaos or aliens has happened before and it will keep happening. But everyone just gives a shit about Cadia because there was a book about it and because Games Workshop wants to. Not to mention that even the Inquisition calls exterminatus on their own planet when they feel like it.
4:40 I also dislike the thing about Chaos existing just to hate on the Imperium. I feel like they don't interact enough with other factions and Chaos vs Imperium conflicts are over-represented. Besides that, I feel like a majority of lore, even when it's done on xenos, gets written from the Imperium's point of view or with the Imperium in mind, instead of letting things exist on their own and interact with the rest of the galaxy.
5:37 Ork's motivations are often simplified to wanting to fight and being comedic relief. But at least Orks are the one faction that portray 40K as being silly and remind everyone that Warhammer isn't meant to be taken seriously.
5:47 Personally, I like Tyranids for their aesthetic. But I also resent how every piece of lore about them is also written from the Imperium's point of view or someone else and the Hive Mind as a character never gets fleshed out.

The Tau were the only reason I started getting into 40k lore to begin with, and it was incredibly disappointing to find out that GW has apparently spent the last decade or two having them written by people that hate their fundamental premise.

It makes the setting MORE DARK to have a perspective not accustomed to it. The Tau let throwaway lines like "this cyborg is 10,000 years old or smth" actually have impact, because we can have a Tau go up to one and experience existential horror realizing it's older than his entire civilization and only cares about trying to murder him.

The Tau's job is to go out there, do the right thing, and STILL LOSE because 40k isn't a setting that allows them to win, and is a setting that lets them do it over and over again. There's narrative impact in that that I just don't find in the 100% grimdark factions, and every element of the setting is improved by having that around. It's very engaging to have the Tau just... going around interacting with stuff. With different Imperium factions, with Ork hordes, with the concept of the warp, with the ADMECH. It tells us new things about all those elements because the Tau were something new.

But no, we can't have nice things or cool battlesuits. We have to make the Tau just another evil faction because everyone threw a tantrum about the setting developing any depth whatsoever. Well JOKES ON YOU games workshop, my headcanon is IMPERVIOUS to your shitty management

Only halfway through but your point about scale is correct. It’s why I always think of 40K not as one big narrative but more as an awesome sandbox for storytelling, since that fixes the stakes problem. It’s impossible for me to care about a guard planet, there are endless guard. But I VERY MUCH CARE about ibram gaunt and the tanith 1st. There’s only one of each of those guys, and I like those guys, and when they die I get very sad.

I was completely fine with T'au just straight up being the good guys because the horrific, grumdunk part of that is the fact that they will just, never matter at all. It's like if the entire world was on fire but like, Wyoming is still doing ok. I also think it fits the unsubtle nature of the setting to make them UNDENIABLY good. Seeing the T'au suffer nightmarish casualties which are so much more impactful on their smaller scale actually made me feel something instead of just 😂😂😂 le one zillion years of war 😦😝🤣 (which I don't mind btw, its just a cool way to expand the setting which i argue doesnt break the themes!)

Also, another point of contention, Necrons use to be minecraft skeletons with no personality, now that's just your baseline troops, Now the Necron leaders all have personalities. Essentially you're using old pre-5th edition lore for the Necrons, when they got a massive overhaul...which makes sense if you're basing your lore from the Dawn of War games. In fact Necrons have THE most well regarded book in 40k, The Infinite and the Divine, which is essentially about elderly grandpa Statler and Waldorf bickering with each other whilst having adventures and includes one of my favorite bits of

"You fool, you bought us box seats to a coup!"
"Well the reviews were good..."

god forbid a girl refuses to die for a rotting corpse and the biggest war machine in the known universe

I’m gonna disagree with your take on the Imperium. They are fun to root for because we know they used to be “better” (I’ll fight anybody who says Emps’ plan for humanity was a good one), we see that they could be better, so we root for the rare individuals with admirable traits like Gaunt, Cain, or Captain Fething Titus earning a moment of peace even though we know it’s meaningless.

Now the Space Marines? Yeah, they’re dumb.

But the guard is where it’s at if you want to root for the imperium. The 10,000 year-old super soldier getting turned to paste by an 18 year-old with a krak grenade will never not be funny.

their grimdark is the fact that they're one lone lighthouse of hope in a massive sea of darkness

I kinda find the whole take interesting but i find it...i dunno...reductive, and it misses the real core theme of 40k.
It isnt that 'everyone is evil harharhar.' Its that the universe itself is cruel.
the theme is stagnation and decay.

The imperium has many worlds within its borders that are actually quite nice. No slavery or forced labour. Many political and economic freedoms. Good standards of living.
The issue is that due to both scale and the issues faced from within and without, a better model cant be universally put in place. The imperium needs its ungodly amounts of grimy hive world industry to fuel its armies with men and munitions. Overlooking its cruelty out of necessity. The horrors of the mechanicus are ignored due to their critical technological and mechanical expertise. Political machinations and technological regression have hampered any kind of major reform. The imperium cant reform itself because it would disrupt the very system it needs to keep itself alive. It has a million worlds and is fighting *everywhere*. Religious dogma has corrupted its soul. The cruel acts of aliens during old night, when humanity was at its knees, has filled their hearts with hatred and scorn.
There are so many good people in the setting just trying to get by without being stepped on by the sheer weight of the brutal machine that is the imperium of man. Many space marines are noble dutiful souls that defend civilians and have the best interests of humanity in their heart. But so too are there marines taught to be heartless shitbags, unpunished due to their nature as 'demigods' to the undereducated populace and uncaring administrators worried about not losing one of their precious supersoldiers...or suffering their wrath.

the eldar for their part take a very active role in their survival, frequently using their scrying to identify threats to be avoided or dealt with. They are clinging desperately to survival.

Orks are funny and i wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment that they dont make for interesting characters. Read any ork book. It'll change your mind.

The tau...the tau are not made to be continually retconned to be more evil. No.
they are written to be ever more wary and disdainful over the course of their expansion into the stars. the tau are best described as naïve optimists. With every disappointing contact with the cruelty of the 40k universe they become more and more callous.
The tale of the tau is less a story of grimdark depression displayed in the imperium. It a tragedy. Its about good people becoming bad because every time they tried to do the nice thing, they are frequently punished for it.

I really like Genestealer Cult for narrative. While the end of their story is likely being eaten or killed, that's sort of everyone in the setting. And I like that the sinister mind control aspect is put alongside the actual regular people who join the faction because they just want things to be better for their planet. A little little fun rebellion.

Edit: they are definitely re-creating the game. Usually fixing some stuff and usually hyper nerfing the old strategies.

This is probably why the Leagues of Votann just fascinates me and are my overall favorite faction despite their lack of lore. The kin are just people who avoid other faction's bullshit and want to improve and develop their society by mining resources and adding valuable information to their collective knowledge. They don't gun down anyone capable of reason at first sight and are even open to trade with them. Hell, I lile them more than the Imperium for simply being nice to robots and treating them as equals.

Yeah definitely disagree with the whole "orks don't make interesting characters" I highly suggest Da Big Dakka and Brutal Kunnin', basically any Ork novel written by Mike Brooks who is someone who 'gets' how to write interesting and fun Ork characters.

Warhammer 40k is a fascinating setting to analyze, because it's such a unique blend of cool ideas and absolute garbage. I think it's most epitomized by tracing its history: 40k started as a satirical sci-fi setting from a small-time British gaming company, and has since then grown into a corporate behemoth meant to appeal to the masses so as to increase profit margins. It leads to such iconic moments as when GW had to tell people that the Space Marines are fascists and bad, despite virtually all of their marketing material depicting them as angelic heroes and super cool.

It's especially frustrating because, honestly, there's a lot to love about 40k. Sure, its massive scale means it's hard to have real stakes, but it's not impossible—you just have to focus on the smaller scale, like making us care about a single sector, or planet, or city, or person (a piece of advice every writer should learn). It also has some incredible aesthetic that you can't find elsewhere, and while I think total Grimdark is stupid, the general vibe of Grimdark can certainly allow for some pretty metal moments.

What really gets me is that 40k is a setting that teeters on the edge of brilliance, but which you know will never truly make it there. The Eldar are a fascinating faction about the withering remains of an eons dead empire, but their books aren't as profitable so they never do anything. The Tyranids are an existential threat that could truly doom the galaxy, but that would threaten the setting so they can't really endanger it. The Tau are an idealistic society that can enhance the setting by both highlighting how horrible the Imperium is in comparison and showcasing how idealism is doomed in the 41st Millenium, but that doesn't make as many sales so they need to be evil now.

There are so many settings that manage to grasp 40k's scale and tone successfully (BattleTech being my favorite example, plus Halo a little bit), but 40k is stuck in a perpetual state of decay: Built up into a massive hobby empire that holds itself afloat by coasting off of old success and innovation, failing to progress itself in any meaningful way. Kind of fitting, really, compared to the Imperium they created.

In my opinion, I think the appeal of some factions and why people like Warhammer, is because it's so over the top and edgy that it circles back to being charming and cool.

The Devs behind Helldivers are Warhammer fans through and through (to the point that they said that they would raise the praise for the monetization if they needed money to buy new units, which simultaneously funny and scary) .

Besides of the Starship Troopers inspiration, you can see some of the over the top elements of Warhammer in Helldivers with the space ship sending their troops inside big bullets, and I would be stretching too much to say that the other to factions, besides the bugs, were also inspired by 40k.

And some people enjoyed Super earth, despite basically being an Fascist Dictatorship, thanks to how over the top it is, to the point that you can help but love it.

Infinite and the Divine(Necrons) is one of the best Warhammer books it’s story is two old men having a grudge against each other for thousands of years. Reading the Night Lords The Omnibus(Chaos Marines) a story of a hated group of edge lords trying not to die and it has been great so far. I hear that Brutal Kunnin(orks) is also fun.

I know this will sound like an advertisement but based on everything youve said about the sort of writing you focus on and such, I would highly recommend you play Roadwarden, seems to fit a lot of the criteria you look for in stories, also just a real good text based game

I actually find the idea of the Tau mind control pheromones as kind of a neat concept, as pheromones in real life are less of a mind control and more of a potent neurochemical suggestion to do whatever they're telling you. It fits the Tau into 40k without detracting from their core ideals, and could have lead to some interesting story themes such as exploring the dichotomy between freedom and ethics, or asking what it actually means to choose to do the right thing. However, this kind of storytelling is nuanced, and we can't have that in our space game now can we?

I enjoy Warhammer because a) some of the factions look cool and b) a lot of the lore is really funny.
The entire Horus heresy can be summarised as "demi gods make a pact with space Satan because of daddy issues."
And this is my reason why I don't really care about the T'au. They are just not funny enough. They are too functional, too diplomatic, too sensible in scale and technology.
But I do agree that riptides and crises suits look pretty cool.

GW 🤝 Bethesda

Serving up the same basic story… forever

it would be funny if the Tau actually were trying to do good, but the rest of the galaxy just said 'no'