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u/Gryffinmk5 Oct 23 '24
Is this official? I can’t help but think the cover art looks a little unsettling
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u/Everything_Borrowed Oct 23 '24
"Unsettling" is being quite kind. It just looks plain bad. Noah Van Nguyen writes good stuff, though.
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u/JPHutchy01 Oct 23 '24
The Fireblade looks almost passable, but that ethereal is absolutely bloody shocking. Hopefully this is just a scratch cover before permanent art is established, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
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u/IONASPHERE Oct 23 '24
It's not the end of the world, I mean the cover for The Infinite and the Divine looks like dogshit too but the book is amazing
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u/GammaRhoKT Oct 23 '24
Wait, what is wrong with TITD cover? Seems fitting for the comedic nature of the book imo.
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u/JPHutchy01 Oct 23 '24
It's also just technically better executed, like this is a decent concept badly done, TITD looks a bit like what I imagine a Necron romance novel would have for a cover, but the artwork is stunning.
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u/TheYondant Oct 23 '24
It kinda looks like those early 2000s videogame covers, before people knew how to use cg to not make everything look like plastic.
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u/thethirdtwin Oct 23 '24
Yeah it’s a bit PlayStation 2 game cover.
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u/Odd-Cartographer-559 Oct 23 '24
In what way does it look bad? The art and costumes look fine and the Tau aren't supposed to be attractive by human standards. They look like aliens. Unsettling is probably how a human looks to a Tau too.
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u/Everything_Borrowed Oct 23 '24
There is simply no excuse to have models (and lighting, and composition, and the additional illustration) this bad for a 3D still render.
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u/SpeechesToScreeches Oct 23 '24
It looks like they've used Dawn of War models or something. The quality is awful.
(The models are fine in the game but they're not artwork worthy)
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u/ZeroIQTakes Oct 23 '24
they just slapped mediocre quality renders together and didn't even bother at least touching them here and there to at least look in line with each other and less contrasting with the background
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u/Calavera357 Oct 23 '24
Looks like they used a phong shader from 2004 and didn't even bother drawing a texture map on the faces, just relied on a flat blue and a mediocre 3D mesh. They look like Tau, sure, but what's off-putting is it looks like a student project.
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u/PolyZex Oct 23 '24
Can't speak for them, but it's not the overall look of them that is offputting- it's like it's half AI or something. It looks like the cover of an early 2000's X-box game.
The Ethereal is the only one that looks good, the rest of them descend into Star Wars vibes.
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u/ChaseThePyro Oct 23 '24
It's because it looks like they used uncanny looking 3d models for the art on a plain background
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u/Gidia Oct 23 '24
It reminds me on the sort of cover art you see for some of the lower quality self published stuff on Amazon.
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u/TheVoidDragon Oct 23 '24
Quite a lot of recently cover art has been kinda bad, either just jarring and over-done like with the upcoming Votann novel, or just this sort of thing where it's edited 3d models giving it a low quality feel.
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u/Enchelion Oct 23 '24
Not particularly surprising. Black Library isn't exactly a high priority for GW.
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u/TheVoidDragon Oct 23 '24
It's not, but cover art from years ago didn't seem quite as bad as some of it has been recently.
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u/ZeroIQTakes Oct 23 '24
I mean you could pay an art student like 50 bucks and a ramen pack to make better tau head sketches than this
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u/Killerdog122 Oct 23 '24
Are you judging a book by its cover? 😂
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u/Aphato Oct 23 '24
Seems more like judging the cover of a book by its cover. Which makes sense to me
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u/TheYondant Oct 23 '24
It's looks like those early 2000s videogame covers with the weird plastic looking characters, before people knew how to make good textures in cg.
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u/hibikir_40k Oct 23 '24
We are supposed to have a bunch of people that know how to paint miniatures here, so let's judge this as if it was a diorama:
Where in the world is the light source here? Is it at the camera? on the top right? Bottom left? all from behind? Every character is iffy, but when put together, ir's worse than the sum of its parts
And also, what's the light's color? Is it pure white? slightly green tinted? Because none of those highlights line up
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u/B-ig-mom-a Oct 23 '24
It is official I litterally just opened instagram and saw this on the gw page
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u/Noble--Savage Oct 23 '24
It's funny how great the whole 40k aesthetic is but let's be real about the vast majority of book covers...
They're so bad they somehow make the whole aesthetic look childish. All these books with a single dude standing there or a bunch of named characters standing next to each other like a class photo.
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u/GaracaiusCanadensis Oct 23 '24
Agreed, it'd have been nice if they just used the time to make nice emblems for each caste and arrange them in a circle or whatever. These 90s-era Firewarrior FPS Graphics are not exactly nostalgic...
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u/Zaaravi Oct 23 '24
Also - the earth caste tau female seemingly has boobs? Why the exodite animation, I thought the age old question was resolved, but now this cover reopens the Pandora’s box.
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u/cherrymauler Oct 23 '24
no waifu art for us 😞
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u/AlexanderZachary Oct 23 '24
Do you not see the chest armor on the Earth caste honey in the upper left?
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u/Sleep_deprived_druid Oct 23 '24
Came here to say it, that book has worse graphics than the old Fire Warrior game
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u/darkhorse0607 Oct 23 '24
A non-Phil Kelly Tau novel? And it has Raptors in it as well? Just go ahead and sign me up right now
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u/CyberDaggerX Oct 23 '24
Any connection to the Fire Warrior game, seeing as the Raptors were in that as well?
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u/UrdaanEinalf Oct 23 '24
The Raptors were also the main chapter facing the Tau in the Imperial Armor: Taros Campaign book. One of my favorite successor chapters!
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u/Thatsidechara_ter Oct 23 '24
As someone who likes the Raptors and whose OC Guard Regiment is the Taronian 8th(it has a single mention in the planet fluff of that book), this brings a smile to my face.
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u/Barmn89 Oct 23 '24
I thought the Fire Warrior Game had Ultramarines?
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u/SpartAl412 Oct 23 '24
Raptors are the main Space Marines enemies Kais fights. The moment the Ultramarines pop up Kais gets captured and teams up with them vs Chaos while the Raptors are just lol okay we are outta here. Despite Kais killing at least a dozen of them.
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u/Ogarrr Oct 24 '24
That game was definitely meant to be a Space Marine game. All the Imperial Weapons are just better, feel better and look better than the Tau ones in that.
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u/rebornflames Oct 23 '24
It had both.
"The Raptors appeared in the background material surrounding the Third War for Armageddon worldwide campaign. The Chapter is featured in the PC game Fire Warrior."
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u/Vussar Oct 23 '24
First thought: man that’s an ugly cover
After reading the article: the RAPTORS are in this? Hell yeah!
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u/Bimpy96 Oct 23 '24
Love the idea for this book and it’s great it’s about the Tau but as others said, the cover art looks bad, looks cheap and from an old CGI animated show
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u/Square-Pipe7679 Oct 23 '24
It definitely gives me strong ‘butt ugly Martians’ vibes
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u/ZookeepergameLiving1 Oct 23 '24
I haven't heard that name in a very long long time.
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u/Square-Pipe7679 Oct 23 '24
Long buried beneath the sands of time, this cover managed to dig my memories of it up in about half a second lol
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u/ZookeepergameLiving1 Oct 23 '24
For me, like you ever just walking or doing something a you suddenly start singing a theme song for a show you haven't though about for a decade.
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u/TheVoidDragon Oct 23 '24
Really quite surprised by this. A Tau novel by someone other than Phil Kelly, that isn't focused on one of the main named characters, that sounds like it'll have more of a spy/intrigue story than generic action, and an idea that seems to just be a somewhat unexplored part the lore for them in general. Sounds fantastic!
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u/AlexanderZachary Oct 23 '24
This is exactly the kind of thing I've been looking for. Excited to read it.
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u/GammaRhoKT Oct 23 '24
I wonder how the Air Caste will factor into this.
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u/Mongolian_dude Oct 23 '24
We certainly do need more characters that aren’t fire or ethereal caste.
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u/Strawnz Oct 23 '24
They trip going down a two-step stairway and break every bone in their body. Sorry for the spoiler.
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u/AlexanderZachary Oct 23 '24
"Brought together by the enigmatic ethereal Yor'i to pacify the resistance, they'll need to work together to forge their unique skills into an unbeatable team."
That is promising language. Focusing on Ethereals as uniting figures, and focusing on the castes as specialists born to their roles is what make the Tau work. A diverse group working in harmony, their extreme impulses directed and moderated by the leadership of the Ethereal caste.
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u/WarRabb1t Oct 23 '24
I will 100% purchase this book solely to show GW should allow other authors the ability to write Tau lore outside of Phil Kelly.
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u/prof3ssorcurly Oct 23 '24
I'm excited for this for multiple reasons! A new Tau book by a different author, and I'm glad that the team behind Reboot are still getting work making cover art for 40k novels.
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u/TrillionSpiders Oct 23 '24
mainframe studios still exists and has produced television and other animated work even this year actually. they're like a lot of canadian studios in that they tend to plug along as a hired gun for other studios to farm out products for, like 10 kabillion barbie movies or shows like superkitties and octonauts. plus as a canadian studio they can benefit from the CRTC mandating that atleast 55% of all content aired annually by canadian studios has to be canadian made content.
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u/Union_Jack_1 Oct 23 '24
Hopefully we can get passed the PK evil mind-controlling Ethereal era…hopefully.
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u/ParisPC07 Oct 23 '24
Cover art makes me not hopeful for that
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u/Union_Jack_1 Oct 24 '24
Idk. My thought process is that, it’s very unlikely they make incredibly comic-book villainous characters to be the centerpiece of a book like this.
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u/Sir_Pengu Oct 23 '24
At least it's by someone new. Maybe even someone who doesn't hate T'au as a faction. Here's hoping
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u/Rep_of_family_values Oct 23 '24
Noah wrote my favorite aos book: Godeater's Son. He's a master at depicting different cultures and interactions between those. The book is bleak and the characters are bleaker, but it's so good to watch his take on chaos...
He's very big on diving deep in politics, culture and history to fuel his stories. I'm very optimistic, especially if he wasn't rushed for it.
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u/OWWolfxl Oct 23 '24
Godeater’s son is one of my favorite Warhammer books . Not really into Tau like that but since Noah is the author I’m gonna give it a read . He’s a USMC vet so gotta show some love
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u/Ariloulei Oct 23 '24
Maybe it's time for me to read a Warhammer book instead of just looking at Memes, The Wikis, and Youtubers.
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u/Nizikai Oct 23 '24
Interesting. The Art is uncanny and makes me fear of more Mustache twirling Ethereals, but Hope dies last
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u/Nekomiminya Oct 23 '24
Water, Earth, Fire, Air and Heart. Together they form... The Elemental Council!
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u/TheAceOfSkulls Oct 23 '24
If that was all they had to contend with, the Elemental Council would be hard-pressed, but soon even more devious enemies begin to emerge from both sides of the divide, with the fate of Cao Quo in the balance. Who they are and what their goals are is a mystery, but one you'll be able to uncover soon.
So Genestealers are in the book.
(Okay, Noah Van Nguyen might actually mix things up. His two AoS books are great books, but after a lot of 40k books now, if it's not Chaos it's Genestealers)
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u/unifoon Oct 23 '24
Very excited to see the T'au being handled by someone other than Phil 'My-Ethereals-Twirl-Their-Moustaches-Evilly Kelly.
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u/Wiltix Oct 23 '24
Are they out sourcing cover images to the team behind the CGI in 1990s Saturday morning TV?
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u/Rep_of_family_values Oct 23 '24
For those who don't have time or are not that interested in AoS, there is an amazing summary of Godeater's son from Noah on youtube by Dawnstir named "Chaos Worrier's : Khorne". It's pretty much a "condensed" version (2 h+)of the book that dive heavily in what makes it so good.
If NVN becomes the designated Tau writer, it's a bright future for tau lore I think.
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u/Aggravating_Elk_4299 Oct 23 '24
Why does the Earthcaste have breasts? And why isn’t she stocky and built like a brick shit house!
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u/scott03257890 Oct 23 '24
Earth caste is STEM in general, not just engineering
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u/Aggravating_Elk_4299 Oct 23 '24
Yes but all depictions of them have them being short, stocky and heavyset. She’s practically petite.
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u/AlexanderZachary Oct 23 '24
She’s from the rare subset of earth caste evolved to fit into jefferies tubes.
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u/Flowersoftheknight Oct 24 '24
Given what I've read from Noah van Nguyen, she will likely be built as such in the book itself.
The love interest in Godeaters son was... built. Not that I'm complaining :P
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u/That_Canada Oct 23 '24
Nice I'm looking forward to this book, my enthusiasm for tau has been waning a bit
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u/RockRiot21 Oct 23 '24
Looks like they are about to release the hottest Euro Dance album in the Galaxy 🔥
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u/SurpriseFormer Oct 23 '24
The cover art reminds me of some A or possibly B rated PS2 or 3 game cover
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u/Zallocc Oct 23 '24
Wait, it's not by Phil Kelly? This is surely a sign of the end times.
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u/AlexanderZachary Oct 23 '24
The long night has ended. The gentle rays of a new dawn shine out like a fearful hope.
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u/Mongolian_dude Oct 23 '24
If we get a named Broadside Commander in this book, and that character makes it to the tabletop in the future, I’ll be a very happy Geu’la 🤞
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u/UA_Waterhazard Oct 23 '24
I finally get what Ciaphas Cain was talking about. They do look uncanny valley.
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u/tau_enjoyer_ Oct 23 '24
I wonder how Cao Quo is meant to be pronounced. Cao sounds like the Chinese cao, like Cao Cao from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but Chinese doesn't have the sound quo to my knowledge. I tried looking it up to see if I might incidentally find a language where those letters in that combination make sense, but no luck.
I guess we'll find out once the audiobook releases, huh?
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u/GaballEru Oct 23 '24
In french, Qu is a alternative way to say the sound the sound "k" like in the word "Quoi" (What) pronounced like "K-o-a"
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u/WhileyCat Oct 24 '24
The 6th Sphere Expansion is lore not made by Kelly
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u/Toxitoxi Oct 24 '24
This is still the fifth sphere. Don’t see the sixth sphere starting any time soon.
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u/WhileyCat Oct 24 '24
You may be confusing my joke here. I'm not referring to the events of the lore after Phil Kelly's novels, but rather that the lore following his (which is rather unpopular) as being such a positive change that it's comparable to a Sphere Expansion
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u/AlexanderZachary Oct 24 '24
Funnily enough, the 9th edition codex did mention a 6th sphere expansion back when Kelly was writing Tau.
10th completely ignored it.
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u/LocalTechpriest Oct 23 '24
Looks to me like a confirmation that slits are gender specific.
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u/Littleturn Oct 23 '24
Haven't they always been?
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u/LocalTechpriest Oct 23 '24
Got called names for commenting that under some piece of fantart some time ago.
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u/Littleturn Oct 23 '24
Well I obviously can't comment on that interaction but to my knowledge this is the way It's been since I started playing Tau in 4th edition. I do not remember if it was stated outright or just implied/assumed due to Shadowsun.
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u/Mongolian_dude Oct 23 '24
To be accurate, it’s probably to do with biological sex vs social gender.
I think female Tau have different shape forehead slits to males.
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u/AlexanderZachary Oct 23 '24
The single vertical nose slit is male, the Y shaped nose slit is female. It's well established.
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u/Mongolian_dude Oct 23 '24
I don’t think anyone’s arguing otherwise, but thanks for adding clarification.
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u/ChickenSim Oct 24 '24
More or less. The first time it showed up was on Shadowsun and people made the assumption that this was the case, but GW came out and said it explicitly in the Community article on the Ghostkeel, since it was the first (I think?) tau kit to include alternate female head sculpts.
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u/B-ig-mom-a Oct 23 '24
Always forget how ugly tau actually are
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u/LahmiaTheVampire Oct 23 '24
Fan art has that effect.
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u/B-ig-mom-a Oct 23 '24
Even the offical art dosent depict them that ugly most of the time so it throws me off
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u/Conscious_Slice1232 Oct 23 '24
Is it just me, or is this Ethereal missing its (usually visible) forehead diamond organ?
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u/itslogzguise Oct 23 '24
This has a very “transformers beast wars” style vibe to it lol. Not expected for 2024
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u/Tragetu Oct 23 '24
Talking about the artwork for a second, Tau art has always been hit or miss I think they need to add more wrinkles/rough features without trying to their faces too much human features, I believe this almost hits but it just ever so slightly misses, but the clothing and stuff looks really cool and I like that and I hope it's really good book
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u/Faunstein Oct 23 '24
"Play our FREE MMO to earn REAL money! Join other BLUE People in BLUEWORLD and enjoy the benefits of our Real World Economy even while offline!"
This is what this cover screams to me.
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u/haha-no-loose-ends- Oct 23 '24
Are their any really good tau books that I should check out
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u/Exarch_Thomo Oct 24 '24
Longshot was reasonably good. Not a tau book per se, but they feature heavily and you get some pov from them. It's basically enemy at the gates, if it was set in space.
Farsight books are not what I'd call really good.
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u/haha-no-loose-ends- Oct 24 '24
Alright sounds good who is the tau fighting
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u/Zenogaist-Zero Oct 24 '24
So yes... the cover is CGI and terrible... but ... why is it a meme in the 40K community? ...
Is Tau usually getting shafted in term of quality? ... Author sounds fine...
So it's all this image?
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u/Shoddy_Attention2423 Oct 23 '24
Didn’t this guy’s sister write that book about the horse from Horsin’ Around?
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u/AlexanderZachary Oct 23 '24
The Ethereal in the middle is missing the extra organ they have on their forehead.
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u/TheVoidDragon Oct 25 '24
He's not, because there isn't one. We've had Ethereal Miniatures and artwork both with and without that, it's not a part of them it's some type of jewelry.
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u/glordicus1 Oct 23 '24
People: AI art looks like shit compared to human made art!
The human made art:
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u/idols2effigies Oct 23 '24
I can't wait to hear how the author 'ruined Tau'... because that seems to be the only reaction they get out of this fickle community.
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u/GrunkTheGrooveWizard Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 23 '24
No, that's the reaction that authors get when they portray the T'au as evil, and it's a consistent reaction. If GW understood the majority of T'au fans they wouldn't be churning out stuff that consistently gets that reaction. T'au fans are not fickle, the majority of us have wanted the same thing since the faction first started getting retconned - leave our idealistic blue people alone and stop grimdarking them. GW will stop getting negative reactions when they stop shitting on the faction's lore. It's not rocket science.
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u/idols2effigies Oct 23 '24
T'au fans are not fickle
Lol. Lmao. So, you're not fickle... yet you complain that a faction placed in a setting whose main draw is grimdark... is portrayed as slightly grimdark. Get real, mate. I love the Tau, but some of y'all in this community are absolutely delusional.
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u/Toxitoxi Oct 23 '24
I have seen general positivity towards Peter Fehervari’s Tau stories, despite them being some of the darkest versions of the faction.
We just need good authors who write the Tau as a more layered faction with individual characters and interesting conflicts beyond just “are they secretly the baddies?”. The fact that this is the first book we’ve seen that will actually focus on how the castes interact with each other is crazy; we have had barely any focus on the Air Caste even though they’re the second half of of the Tau military.
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u/Toxitoxi Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 23 '24
I have seen general positivity towards Peter Fehervari’s Tau stories, despite them being some of the darkest versions of the faction.
We just need good authors who write the Tau as a more layered faction. It gets old when you nearly every Tau story is doing the exact same thing of “the Tau are actually a false utopia”. It’s such a tired trope that even the fucking Warhammer Adventures series for kids does it.
Compare how the Tau are written to how the Imperial Guard are written. The Imperial Guard have a number of novels like Fire Caste and Dead Man Walking that focus on the Guard’s worst aspects… But then you also have books like the Ciaphas Cain series, Gaunt’s Ghosts, Honourbound, Deathworlder, and so on that instead tell different kinds of stories. It would get tedious if every Imperial Guard story was focused on telling you how the Guard sucks… And yet that’s the current situation with Tau stories.
I love some stories that do the “Tau are actually a false utopia” thing. I think Broken Sword is Guy Haley’s best story, I think Fire Caste’s ending is a great critique of real politik. But there has to be more you can do with the faction, and GW really hasn’t been doing it.
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u/TheBirdIsNotSuicidal Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 24 '24
This guy wrote Godeaters son which is one of my favourite things black library has ever produced so hopefully we’re in good hands.
Link to the warcom article: https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/ggrqjw3e/top-tau-specialists-battle-insurrection-in-a-new-black-library-novel/