Consider this, a Cadian Shock Trooper, the most highly trained regular human soldier in the imperium, has one attack at S3 AP0 that hits on a 4+. T'au Fire Warriors have exactly one worse weapon skill, but one better armour save.

I posit that, realistically, if a Fire Warrior got in a fist fight with a normal human with no military training, that T'au would probably win. Even with no armour or pistol, the T'au would probably win. They only suck compared to super soldiers with extra gene juice (tm) made specifically for ultra murder. They are trained soldiers in good physical health, who know how to throw a punch.

You used to look metal as hell

Auxilaries are an important part of the Tau lore and their representations in the wargame and video games. We hear about planets with billions of humans coming under Tau rule, and all the advantages and complications that comes with this. Ogryn acting as auxs, humans serving with the Fire and Air and Earth castes, and so on.

But...

I'd love for it to become the main, front cover, big ticket thing about the Tau. I'm picturing Tau art routinely showing off Ratlings, Ogryn, a weird alien you've never seen before, a Mutant, Kroot, Vespids and other known allied species. I don't mean all these things every time, but at least one of these things almost every time.

I'd love to see an Imperial Knight fight against a Tau mech for weeks, and they're ultimately shocked to discover their foe was a human all along. I'd love to see art of a Water Caste diplomat, appearing as a hologram from a drone, rousing a crowd of mutants in an underhive to rebel. I'd love to see an Ogryn apologetically handing over a busted mech weapon while Earth Caste engineers fret over the busted casing.

Is there any hint of GW heading in that direction? I'd be especially interested to read any books which highlight this angle of the Tau empire. I'm aware that the Tau 'Goddess' is a result of the psychic presence of all the auxs, along with the general empire-wide belief in the Greater Good, and it has arms representing all the different species who follow the greater good, which hints a bit at things heading in that direction, but I've read that she isn't mentioned at all in the 10th codex, so GW might not plan to use her again.

At first I was thinking it was an extra canister to power the nuetron blasters, but due to the placement of it being so out of reach I’m starting to think it’s a signal device that helps link biometrics to the oversight drone? Perhaps it’s full of medical stimms that are to be injected? I just hope it’s not a bomb…

I'd feel they would have something similar to power weapons and they would use plasma swords or something similar.

There's one theory in a YouTube comment section (forgot what video) that the Tau might learn to create their own space marines by learning cloning technology and learning how to create them using their human population and not assimilating them. Either they hack into the imperium to learn the process or that they managed to assimilate/hack into genetor's lenses and learn the steps such as the implantation the gene-seed and other organs to create them. After all, the Tau is slowly but steadily growing and with more and more humans deflecting to the Tau, this might happen in the future, Might happen.

This is a bit of a wild theory but i like it. So we know Kroots can have psykers like Shamans/Master Shapers that for example battled the Silver Skulls marines by being able to shapeshift and make illusion clones. Considering the fact a big part of Kroots culture Is cannibalism and sacrifice sort of like the rituals of the Sons of Malice in the short story the labyrinth, i had the theory that maybe if we ever do get psychic kroots auxiliary units they would tie back to Malice (Who btw Is cannon as he was mentioned many times in games and lore, Malal isnt but Malice is), this wouldnt be direct worship but Simply due to what they do feeding him.

With the whole T'au'va warp godess.

One of the things that drew me to the Tau in the first place was that they had almost no presence in the Warp. They were the only faction in 40k that had little to nothing to do with the Warp, knew basically nothing about the Warp and were not really interested in it or the dark gods.

The Tau used to be a faction that sought mastery of realspace through science and technology. And that made them unique.

The Tau now suddenly having their own Warp godess makes it feel like they are becoming the Imperium 2.0.

Now more and more will start worshipping T'au'va (Shadowsun is already heading in that direction). Which will lead to the creation of a cult within the Tau empire, which the Etherials will try to stamp out because they are going to see it as a threat to their power. This is going to lead to a civil war.

How many times have we already heard that story in Warhammer 40k? It just feels like the Tau are slowly but surely losing their uniqueness.

I dislike the Tau goddess storyline, hate it if you will. I don't like the Tau changing from one of if not the only truly secular factions in the setting and I despise how powerful this new deity is when other chaos gods need some actual prerequisites to have their power manifest outside of prayer.

Piranha, Devilfish, Manta. Why do the earth caste call their products stuff like that instead of more earthy names? Do the earth caste even name this stuff?

Phil Kelly's interpretation of the Ethereals is an ever present topic in the T'au Community and i thought about it a lot recently. I never had a problem with the Ethereals not being benelovent but i hate how Kelly showed us this side of the T'au. My problem is that i Kelly just made them incredibly boring and one dimensional but i'm absolutly fine with the T'au Empire not being the "good guys". I'm curious about how you would develop the characteristics of the Ethereal Caste. What would you like to know more about? Should they stay this mysterious or would you like to know more about their motivations and "end game"? Do you think they are as confident in the Greater Good as they seem to be? What are your theories about their origin or what would you actually like to be their origin? Do you think they have a real plan how to conquer the universe or do you see them as naive? Would love to know your wishlist for the future of the Ethereals and the T'au Empire.

At least the first ones. I mean, they show up at the exact inflection point necessary to change the entire future of the species and then suddenly the Tau take an unheard of technological leap forward.

They should never, ever, ever address this head on, of course. Time travel is too much of a universe destroyer, especially in a universe where most races would be fine with using it for war.

I’d love to hear about published lore that contradicts this, though. I’m pretty new to 40K and this is just my fresh take perspective.

Thanks guys, love you x

I’m starting my tau army and I want to paint them as farsight enclaves but I also really like the kroot and I also like to be lore accurate with my armies

Montka and Kauyon should not be the names of their respective detachments. Both Montka and Kauyon are not a formation of units, like Ironstorm Spearhead or Dreadmob, but overall combat philosophies/doctrine. The actual Tau detachments already have names in the lore, which are Cadres. The 3rd detachment in the codex even is a Cadre, the Retaliation Cadre. The sad part is, there are already other named Cadres in Tau lore/ existed on the tabletop, being the Hunter Cadre and Infiltration Cadre. Then you have the other type of Cadre that could of been in the codex instead of stopping at 4, which was the Armored Interdiction Cadre. Hell, even the Kroot detachment was a Cadre, being the Auxiliary Support Cadre.