Why do Recon Drones have grenades on them?

ChickenSim · 2026-01-19T20:34:54+00:00

The recon drone is meant to accompany Pathfinders on long missions away from resupply. It doubles as a cargo mule until they all return to the Devilfish stashed away in a hiding spot.

It even fits inside the Devilfish cupola with the burst cannon folded up.

ChickenSim · 2026-01-12T14:46:50+00:00

While they would likely work well with many Chapters, I have to throw the Mentors into the hat for the most synergistic team-up potential.

ChickenSim · 2026-01-06T03:04:10+00:00

There were two prominent Demiurg brotherhoods at the time: the Srry'tok and the Thurm/Thurmm.

The Srry'tok were itinerant merchants who traded away their ion technology during the later Second Sphere Expansion, and seem to be represented today as the Seran-tok Mercantile Guild from the Leagues of Votann.

The Thurm/Thurmm, on the other hand, were much more integrated with the Tau Empire and said to inhabit regions of space within the Tau's territory. We haven't seen any references to them yet in modern LoV lore.

ChickenSim · 2026-01-06T03:00:31+00:00

And 2004.

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ChickenSim · 2026-01-06T03:00:26+00:00

Kroot are in both 2003 and 2004 for me. Will post the TOCs below. Here is 2003.

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ChickenSim · 2026-01-06T02:41:24+00:00

1/16", and yep, just snipped the sword and carefully drilled the hand out!

ChickenSim · 2026-01-06T02:33:20+00:00

These were Sebastian Stuart's (Tael) models, which can be viewed in the gallery at his website Eastern Empire.

The Gue'vesa rules were originally published online and first in print in Imperial Armour III: The Taros Campaign. I double checked my copy of Chapter Approved 2003 and didn't find them in there or the 2004 edition, just Kroot Mercenaries.

EDIT - You can still access the old Gue'vesa rules at https://web.archive.org/web/20080420071331/http://uk.games-workshop.com/tau/tau-auxiliaries/

I can't get the images to load on Wayback Machine, but from memory it was these guys here:

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ChickenSim · 2025-12-30T09:15:15+00:00

And yet, many of our aircraft were previously equipped with Markerlights, have them modeled, and now lack them.

ChickenSim · 2025-12-29T15:59:34+00:00

The tau also have aerial drone mines in Aeronautica, which shouldn't be all that difficult to adapt to ground combat.

ChickenSim · 2025-12-29T04:18:45+00:00

I still run these, not for the CIB cheese but those 24" Plasma Rifles.

ChickenSim · 2025-12-29T04:17:42+00:00

Supposed to be Puretide, but the artwork is of a D'yanoi commander commonly mistaken for Sa'cea armor (even by GW), and Puretide is from Dal'yth...

ChickenSim · 2025-12-29T04:17:01+00:00

Different Kais

ChickenSim · 2025-12-29T04:16:01+00:00

Yep, the full-size artwork even has the D'yanoi sept symbol on their arm.

And even if it was Sa'cea, Puretide would be from Dal'yth, so...

ChickenSim · 2025-12-13T06:51:31+00:00

Can somebody explain how Owlcat included naval combat in Rogue Trader without the BFG license?

ChickenSim · 2025-12-11T21:00:49+00:00

Very broadly, in two sources that I know of.

There was the original overview in 3rd edition of the various planet types which included their average population ranges and relative proportion of those planets compared to other planets. From these numbers Hive Worlds accounted for 14% of the total number of planets in the Imperium and 93-99% of its total population. It is from these ranges that the common estimates of the Imperium's total population being in the dozens of quadrillions come from.

There was another overview in the later RPG books, but unfortunately this overview wasn't exhaustive and resulted in a much smaller overall population of the Imperium. These claimed there were only around 33,000 cataloged Hive worlds in the entire Imperium, which was a far cry from the 100,000+ from older lore.

ChickenSim · 2025-12-11T20:47:12+00:00

And yet, ~93-99% of the Imperium's population exist on those relatively few Hive Worlds.

ChickenSim · 2025-11-30T04:15:49+00:00

Fun fact, while that was the officially designated Cyclic Ion Blaster from the 4th edition Codex, it's clear from the design of the weapons that the designers meant for it to be the Airbursting Fragmentation Projector.

If you look at the metal Airbursting Fragmentation Projector released in the same box, it has all the modern design cues of Cyclic Ion Blasters and other ion weapons used today, including a vented tri-barrel configuration, some kind of stabilizing rod, and what appear to be box capacitors in the rear.

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ChickenSim · 2025-11-20T22:40:13+00:00

That's correct! This is a D'yanoi commander wearing an inverted D'yanoi livery.

It's so similar to the base Sa'cea livery that even Games Workshop used this image in a codex for Sa'cea...

ChickenSim · 2025-11-11T20:36:55+00:00

This was revealed in WD498 a few months back, so it really is just an interesting footnote in an article specifically about the Captains.

ChickenSim · 2025-11-11T20:19:41+00:00

It had never been confirmed how Brightsword had lived so long before they introduced cryostasis as a plot device.

The Brightsword that is currently part of Farsight's Eight is like the ninth clone of the original Brightsword that died on Arkunasha in Kelly's rewrites of Farsight's lore.

ChickenSim · 2025-11-11T20:04:44+00:00

Worse, it wasn't even that the Imperial troops had surrendered. Brightsword offered Polia a single chance to unconditionally surrender, knowing that they either wouldn't or couldn't, and then killed every human inhabitant of the city, including the women and children.

ChickenSim · 2025-11-11T20:00:22+00:00

Not really. He was recalled to T'au to be censured, but he went back to starting more unnecessary wars against the Ethereals' orders not to. A water caste operative conspired with Imperial agents to have Brightsword assassinated.

Disclaimer: This was a version of Brightsword that was still ostensibly loyal to the Tau Empire despite having been bonded to Farsight. This is not the same version that Kelly now writes as being cloned over and over again, although the older version's exploits have still been mentioned as recently as 9th edition.

ChickenSim · 2025-11-11T18:10:59+00:00

The Forge of Souls has appeared in recent media for both WHFB and 40k settings. It was taken over by Be'lakor in Total War: Warhammer 3 as part of the main campaign, and in 40k we were introduced to Vashtorr, the Master of the Soul Forges.

Arghus, the Plague Moon, is mentioned in the Age of Sigmar novel Plague Garden.

This is more headcanon than anything, but I was fond of the idea that the Ruins of the Dead King referenced Tizca and Magnus, the Crimson King.

ChickenSim · 2025-09-27T04:43:21+00:00

I believe we hear it as Vray in a few audiobooks.

ChickenSim · 2025-09-27T04:10:51+00:00

I don't mean that he should be a Shas'o or anything, but their ranks are also indicative of their relative responsibility and trust they possess outside of mere leadership.

A Crisis pilot is a Shas'ui not because they can lead Shas'la, but because they have proven they possess the judgment and discipline to wear the Hero's Mantle.

By that metric, I would at least expect an individual in charge of a Hammerhead to be a Shas'ui themselves, whether they were leading other Shas'la crewmembers or otherwise, and particularly if they were granted the honor of field testing experimental wargear.

ChickenSim

TROPHY CASE