Part three of a continuing project log of my 40k Tau army and their efforts to retain control of the United Systems of Atreidia, against the gradual uprising posed by my buddy Enrico’s Terran, Chaos, and Genestealer Cult forces. Check out part one and part two if you’re inclined. 

The Story So Far:

To say that the rhetoric among the citizens of Atreidia was getting violent would be an understatement. Groups of Terran citizens took to the streets to protest Tau occupation, Tau taxation, and Tau development policies. Again, the segments of the city that were in process of being rebuilt after a massive acid typhoon were where the sentiment was strongest, as off-world xenos laborers were being shipped in to take many construction jobs. The Tau tried to explain that the Vespid workers they were employing could better handle the conditions of acid residue labor, but it fell on deaf ears. One popular voice demanded that the Vespid pay for their work privilege, and pay for a full protective shieldwall on that side of town themselves.

That sparked a march in the sector, which drew a variety of people interested in the proceedings. While some were the most virulent of anti-Tau proponents, many others were simply lured in by economic crisis or the sheer charisma of the organizers.

Trouble began when an off-duty Tau Fire Caste Warrior showed up at the protest. Unarmored and unarmed, he nonetheless began yelling back at the crowd and preventing their marching. The situation turned ugly quick, with cries about freedom of speech clashing with his own shouts about how good the Terrans have things under Tau guidance and they should all just go home. It was then that someone in the crowd threw a rock, striking the arguing Tau in the head and knocking him out cold.

Tau military units had been monitoring the protest, suspecting that additional infiltrators from the desert group that was organizing resistance were among them. When a Tau was injured by the crowd, the forces responded with an attempt to disperse the masses. Their DS8 Tactical Support Turrets had been loaded with gas shells, which would launch a ultimately harmless but quite unpleasant plant pollen into the crowds. The stinging itch was calculated to disperse the protesters without causing undue harm. And thus, they fired on the crowd.

It was the organized munitions launching into the group that finally turned outrage into pure hatred. The entire crowd surged with a wave of anger. It was the moment that the demagogue amid the crowd was waiting for. He and his followers were in tune with that anger, and savored the crackling energy it released into the air. The ritual sigils from ancient Terran myth that they had smeared on themselves using the blood of desert bovines began to hum with power. In seconds, they were reborn. The demagogue’s robes tore free, and strange brass armor began to grow from his skin. Around him, the faithful were sprouting all manner of change–their muscles enlarging with madness and strange growths protruding from their bodies. They had become possessed by the spirits of pure anger.

With horrifying confidence, the new form of the demagogue waved an arcane pattern in the air, and two pools of energy formed on the city streets. Striding from one nearby were a cadre of strange, armed and armored figured, their armor colored blood red. The far one shimmered and beings exited as well, but the distance of their arrival and strange, cloven-footed forms had trouble being recorded on Tau viewscreens.

With screams of panic, the protesters abandoned their signs and fled for their lives. Judging the new arrivals to be a threat, simply because of their mad dash at the Tau lines, the Tau security forces opened fire. The fleeing protesters were struck by errant bullets from the Tau, but those protesters that neared any of the new arrivals’ positions met and equally grisly fate as they lashed out indiscriminately at all life near them.

The Tau used what redeploying methods they could to buy more time against the onslaught–the Breacher team that took cover in their Devilfish emerged again to deliver a close proximity burst at the armored foes. Yet their numbers were small, and the Devilfish and Piranha that were helping patrol the sector didn’t carry the kind of ordinance needed to repel such desperate foes.

The distant creatures that had arrived finally made it to the Tau lines, and the Ethereal Commander Lisbet W’ren looked on at the strange alien race that seemed to be working with these Terrans. They had cruel hooves for feet, strange elongated heads, red blistered skin, and carried wicked blackish swords. Ethereal Commander Lisbet had never seen such creatures, despite contributing to over thirteen colonization missions personally. Their deadly strikes made short work of the nearby drones.

Pressed between the jaws of two forces, Commander Lisbet tried a desperate gamble. She rushed forward to try and stop the threat of the warped demagogue with her own honor blade. While she managed to fend him off for a bit, his deadly strength proved too much for her under-armored form. She fled on foot, with small drops of blue blood littering the path she took as she ran. She glanced back, seeing that every one of her Fire Warriors had fallen in brave service–only the crews of the vehicles had survived besides herself.

As the Tau fled, the demagogue climbed up a structure. The portable microphone and amplifier he had been using when in the crowd was now strangely fused to his new body. He lifted the skull-shaped microphone to his mouth, and his shout reverberated around the entire sector. “I am Olim Yia, prophet of what is to come. Join us Terrans. Resist the Tau and embrace what is fundamental to your nature, what ancient power runs in your blood. Embrace your true Terran feelings of hatred and anger. The Tau do not understand them with their alien fishbrains. It’s what sets us apart, and through our natures we can become strong. Join me, join us, join the great spirit of Khorne that lurks in every Terran’s soul. You can feel him there, calling you even now. Give in, and we can ‘Make Atreidia Great Again!'”

Thus was born the first of the revealed prophets, Olim Yia, the Maw of Rage.

Tau Project Log

Like I mentioned last time, my goal was to at least have a force org chart filled. So a Breacher Squad, an Ethereal, a Piranha, and two DS8 turrets were what I focused on to get there. A very small force (around 450 points) but still enough for a regular game.

The Tau Ethereal I added is a resin model from Wargame Exclusive, a company from the Ukraine (at least that’s where it was shipped from) that does creative sculpts of various models in the 40k universe that don’t have models created by GW (such as Tau models with some persona and character to them, including female Tau). I really liked a number of their models, and while some are a little cheesecake, I figured that the diversity in the model would look really nice amidst the army–and I think it came together nicely.

Finally, I’m really proud of the look of the Tau Piranha that I finished up, so I couldn’t resist a close up (there wasn’t one in the “footage”, as it mostly swooped around and missed its shots).

For the battle itself, we used a limited number of turns plus HQ kill as the deciding factor. In addition, we built up rules for the fleeing members of the demonstration group: missed ranged hits by Tau would potentially kill them, while missed melee strikes from Khorne models may kill them. Whichever side killed the most civilians would get the worse of things in the “press”–and sadly the Tau missed more shots and thus contributed to more injured or dead overall.

Part one of a continuing project log of my 40k Tau army and their efforts to retain control of the United Systems of Atreidia, against the gradual uprising posed by my buddy Enrico’s Terran and Chaos forces. 

The Story So Far:

Some people ask what the spark was that started the Atreidia revolt. Certainly the initial seeds were planted eleven cycles ago when the Tau first arrived and made their compacts with the system to provide technology and improvements in exchange for military presence in their expansion. However, a much closer flash point moment happened recently when a Tau Fire Caste patrol got into trouble, and one death led to many more.

Tau patrol 271-R was working with a local Terran interpreter to help root out some local gang activity. The Shas’ui was assigned four other Fire Warriors to the patrol, along with two Gun Drones for security and monitoring purposes. At a busy intersection in the part of the city where an acid typhoon had rotted away some buildings, creating the perfect slum conditions where gangs could hide, they conducted their interviews of the working people who passed through the area.

Sadly, a young child and his sister were out in the street nearby. According to eyewitness accounts, the boy had a small street cleaning device and was attempting to scrape a subsistence wage through community beautification “shovel-ready” projects. A passing Tau Drone registered the cleaning device incorrectly, and security protocols were initiated incorrectly. Security film footage later released on the Atreidia News Network shows the Drone bleating a warning out twice, but the noise of the cleaning device may have made the child miss the warning. As the child turned toward the Drone, the hostility matrix was triggered and the Drone fired. The child died instantly, with his sister watching on and mother nearby.

The Shas’ui recognized the malfunction of the Drone, and endeavored to apologize to the mother and child and promise both improved revision of the Drone protocol as well as full restitution from the Tau government for both loss of life and grieving. The mother, a poor scrap-cleaner from the ruined area, was inconsolable. Also, the excessively legalistic way of the Tau language was poorly translated by the fresh Terran interpreter, making the mother wail all the more.

A group of local laborers were nearby and not only saw the shooting but also heard the mother’s crying. This particular group had recently been threatened with reduced work hours at the manufactorium where they worked because a contingent of Vespid workers, who needed less sleep cycles, were inbound from the neighboring system–which made them all the more incensed at the Tau and the young child’s death. One of their number started the chaos by approaching the Terran interpreter and starting a shoving match with him.

Meanwhile, one of the Terrans-first hate groups that had organized as a gang was nearby. Their leaders had been preaching a story of anger and rage against the Tau, and this armed group was ready to act. The shoving match, and seeing the Tau Drones responding with further security protocol warnings, gave them the opening they needed to embrace their anger and attack.

The rest of Tau patrol 271-R was trying to get back to their Shas’ui when the armed gang of angered citizens struck. Opening up with shotguns and autoguns, bullets flew at the outnumbered Tau patrol. The Fire Warriors’ instincts kicked in, and their return fire with pulse rifles hit with deadly accuracy against the unarmored rabble. The noise of shooting and the sight of Tau firing their weapons at Terrans caused the situation to escalate quickly. One of the Tau was killed by a gout of fire from a flamer carried by one of the gang members.

The group of Terran workers turned into an angry mob instantly. The Terran interpreter was beaten senseless at their hands. They seemed enraged at his collaboration with the xenos who had killed the child, and now were firing on people they took as citizens.

It devolved into chaos in the streets, with the sheer numbers of Terran citizens being too much for the small patrol of Tau to handle. With wrenches, tools, and servo-assisted work fists, the Fire Warriors were beaten and killed by the rampaging mob. With the images broadcasted on the news network across the system, resentment and anger began building among the populace. Meanwhile, the Tau had lost five Fire Warriors themselves, and had a brewing bout of anti-colonial resistance on their hands.

Looking back at all the bloodshed and war that came through the Atredian campaign, this little moment of spark was what set everything in motion in the years to come.

Tau Project Log

In addition to finishing the Terran interpreter model (seen in pictures above), I settled on a color scheme for my Tau and got a first unit of Troops finished up. Five members of a Fire Warrior Strike Squad, with two Gun Drones. The Shas’ui has a Pulse Carbine with markerlight and target lock. I’m pretty happy with the color scheme, inspired somewhat by the N’dras paint color suggestion GW had on the back of the Stealth Suit box. It was just enough to run our small mission above.

The mission was pretty simple, and used classic Combat Patrol rules where each model activated independently. For the interpreter and the Terrans, we used the stats of Chaos Cultists but armed only with hand weapons. Working people were weapon skill 2 however, and the few children models (manufactorium apprentices) were additionally strength 2 and toughness 2. The gangers were simply Chaos Cultists unmarked. We placed the citizens in groups around the board, and each group did leadership tests to “hear” the situation, and would activate accordingly. The Tau waited to fire weapons or fight until the Terrans acted first, and the Shas’ui spent time using leadership tests to try and order the bereaved woman and her child to flee the area of danger when things started to get out of hand.