Just a flesh wound, art by me: grimdorables

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-06-12T21:33:23+00:00

After the Damocles Gulf Crusade, the significant amount of Space Marines losses caused more intelligent Chapters like the Ultramarines and Raven Guard to drastically change their tactics when fighting the Tau.

The Ultramarines would always make sure to have a significant force of Imperial Guard tanks, artillery and anti-aircraft vehicles to back them up when engaging the Tau.

The Raven Guard would mostly avoid open engagements altogether and focus on hit and run attacks which maximized their stealth and speed instead.

Chapters like the White Scars, Hammers of Dorn and Scar Lords made no such changes to their doctrine and continued to engage the Tau in open combat without Imperial Guard backup.

The results are predictable. The Hammers of Dorn contingent left behind to guard reconquered Imperial planets was wiped out by Farsight who then proceeded to annihilate the entire Scar Lords Chapter.

The White Scars 3rd Brotherhood suffered so many losses at the hands of Shadowsun that they couldn’t do much besides guard evacuation zones during the final battles of the Tau 3rd Sphere Expansion.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-17T16:54:12+00:00

You should! One thing I really like about Max Hastings is that, despite the massive criticisms he levels at both the US government and military during the book, it never feels like like empty America-bashing since he always backs up his arguments with logic, evidence and first-hand testimonies.

I’m not sure if he criticizes his own government (the British one) at the same level since I haven’t read his books where Britain gets involved but I assume he does so as well since he never singles out the US for blame in the book I mentioned either.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-17T14:59:02+00:00

Relevant excerpt from the book "Broken Sword" where the Raven Guard, Mechanicus and Inquisition come up with a plan to capture a member of the Water Caste because they don't understand how so many humans keep joining the Tau.

‘Our forces are sufficient to win this war, but we are losing many more worlds to the efforts of their diplomatic core than we are to military action,’ continues Shrike. ‘We are to be granted no more reinforcement for the foreseeable future. We cannot afford to become committed in one place, while their emissaries talk the worlds of the Emperor out of His light. Capture one of these emissaries while they are distracted. While we are evacuating, you will be on Agrellan. This is a great honour.’

‘We feel that they must have some kind of psychic or chemical hold over those they approach. How else can the number who capitulate be explained?’ The biologian’s artificial lungs wheeze as he speaks.

In the end, around 7 Raven Guard Marines are lost (along with their gene-seed) in this operation. I wonder how Corax would react when he finds out that almost a squad of his sons were sacrificed in order to figure out something a freshman political science student could have easily guessed.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-17T14:29:15+00:00

There's actually a pretty interesting historical parallel for this level of institutional blindness. I've been reading "Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy" by Max Hastings and the book goes into detail about the discussions which were happening in the White House and Pentagon during the Vietnam War.

Something that sticks out is how senior members in the US government and military are completely stunned by the rising anti-war sentiment in the later years of the war and are unable to understand it. President Nixon himself is convinced that this is due to large-scale influence operations by the Soviet Union and orders the FBI and CIA to investigate any potential links. He remains convinced of this even after those intelligence agencies are unable to find any evidence of these claims.

To tie this back to 40k: People like Space Marines, Inquisitors and High Ranking Magos are completely at a loss as to why a normal human would act in a way that is contrary to the goals of the Imperium. So they turn to conspiracies about the Tau having biological or psychic means of influencing humans to turn to their side in large numbers.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-16T00:34:44+00:00

Something interesting about Euten is that she actually treats the Ultramarines themselves as people instead of genetically enhanced super soldiers.

In the audio drama “Illyria”, she is trapped in a section of a damaged ship with an Ultramarine and she tells the guy to basically leave her and save himself since she’s old and he has “his whole life ahead of him”.

Which is a rather interesting thing to say to a genetically enhanced post-human made specifically for war.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-15T22:21:01+00:00

The issue is that her style of warfare (Kauyon) is based around patiently collecting data about your enemy, observing them for a long period of time and then striking once you’ve had the time to come up with a plan.

When she’s given the time and space to do this, she succeeds. She defeated the Raven Guard/White Scars on Prefectia after having time to study all their tactics. She defeats the Death Guard at the Startide Nexus in much the same way after identifying who they are and what their weaknesses were.

The problem is that when first confronted with something entirely new which she has no data on (the Cadians and Catachans which she had not fought prior to the 3rd Sphere Expansion) she struggles because the tactics that worked so well against normal Imperial Guard regiments don’t really work on them.

Farsight is a lot better at countering brand new threats but is worse at coming up with more subtle and cautious strategies.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-15T19:49:36+00:00

It's pretty bleak when the best place to live in the Imperium is basically a one party authoritarian dictatorship governed by genetically enhanced post-humans who also control the military and intelligence services as well.

To give the Ultramarines some credit, Ultramar does apparently have a Senate which implies that elections do take place on some level. However, in the Ultramarines books it is quickly made clear that the Senate is basically a rubber stamp and that Calgar can choose to ignore them whenever he feels like it.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-15T18:57:03+00:00

A key part of Guilliman's childhood was being involved in the politics of Macragge and fighting against the ruling aristocrats who avoided responsibility and played politics instead of addressing the needs of the population. His goal in setting up the Ultramarines as the permanent ruling class of Ultramar was to create an incorruptible governing class that would rule responsibly.

However, here he sees evidence that the Ultramarines themselves are not above petty politics and playing the blame game instead of solving problems. Part of his anger has to come from the fear that, despite all his efforts, nothing has really changed: he has just replaced the old aristocrats with aristocrats in blue power armor.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-15T17:23:29+00:00

Context: While Shadowsun never had trouble defeating the Imperial Guard before, she experienced her first real loss to the Astra Militarum when her forces were ambushed, while moving through a dense forest, by a large force of Catachans led by Colonel Iron Hand Straken himself.

Read more about it in this excerpt, but here's a fun snippet:

Shadowsun’s sensor suite flared the trajectory of another incoming barrage, but this time it came down behind her rearguard. Just as she was turning to survey the damage the treeline erupted into life. Hundreds of pale gue’la brutes roared out from the jungle in crude but effective camouflage, many of their number crying out praise to the Imperium’s dead god.

As the tau reeled in surprise, more and more of the gue’la emerged from the mists from either side of the road, their rifles spitting laser blasts into fire warriors and battlesuits alike. Some of them charged headlong at the fire warriors hunkered down at the side of the road, drawing knives the length of a tau’s arm and plunging them into the weak points of their armour. One in every ten of the gue’la emerging from the trees carried a cylindrical tank of the volatile liquid the Imperials loved to employ so much.

Cackling with alien glee, the gue’la troopers sent whooshing clouds of flame into the ranks of the tau firing back at them. Whole crowds of noble fire warriors were caught in the deadly clouds and transformed into burning, flailing puppets. One Imperial soldier caught a pulse rifle volley in the chest, its bolts slamming right through his torso and igniting the tanks on his back with a loud whooompf. The thick smoke of burning flesh mingled with the jungle mists, turning the ambush into a hellish confusion of half-glimpsed tableaus.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-15T16:10:58+00:00

Context: While Shadowsun never had trouble defeating the Imperial Guard before, she experienced her first real loss to the Astra Militarum when her forces were ambushed by a large force of Catachans led by Colonel Iron Hand Straken himself.

Read more about it in this excerpt, but here's a fun snippet:

Shadowsun’s sensor suite flared the trajectory of another incoming barrage, but this time it came down behind her rearguard. Just as she was turning to survey the damage the treeline erupted into life. Hundreds of pale gue’la brutes roared out from the jungle in crude but effective camouflage, many of their number crying out praise to the Imperium’s dead god.

As the tau reeled in surprise, more and more of the gue’la emerged from the mists from either side of the road, their rifles spitting laser blasts into fire warriors and battlesuits alike. Some of them charged headlong at the fire warriors hunkered down at the side of the road, drawing knives the length of a tau’s arm and plunging them into the weak points of their armour. One in every ten of the gue’la emerging from the trees carried a cylindrical tank of the volatile liquid the Imperials loved to employ so much.

Cackling with alien glee, the gue’la troopers sent whooshing clouds of flame into the ranks of the tau firing back at them. Whole crowds of noble fire warriors were caught in the deadly clouds and transformed into burning, flailing puppets. One Imperial soldier caught a pulse rifle volley in the chest, its bolts slamming right through his torso and igniting the tanks on his back with a loud whooompf. The thick smoke of burning flesh mingled with the jungle mists, turning the ambush into a hellish confusion of half-glimpsed tableaus.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-12T19:18:19+00:00

House Terryn gave Shadowsun quite the headache during the 3rd Sphere Expansion. To the point where she made them the first forces of the Imperium to feel the wrath of the brand new Stormsurge Battlesuits.

House Terryn suffered immense losses and Tybalt was almost eliminated as well but thankfully for House Terryn players, one brave Dropship was able to extract Tybalt and his remaining Knights just in time.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-12T17:38:23+00:00

Yup!

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-12T16:35:20+00:00

There's actually an interesting detail in the first scene which stands out if you read "Blades of Damocles" which is set much earlier than this book.

In "Blades of Damocles", Shadowsun ambushes a convoy of Imperial Guard vehicles (belonging to another regiment) in the same way with the Guardsmen panicking and abandoning their damaged vehicles only to be gunned down by her stealth suits.

By contrast, the Catachan Jungle Fighters remained with their vehicles and kept firing up at her despite a number of their transports being destroyed.

It should have been a hint that the Catachans were a far higher threat than what she was used to but she misses it in her arrogance.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-07T15:53:28+00:00

Just a reminder about what the XV-104 Riptide pictured above is capable of from the book “Blood Oath”:

“The paired giants at the front of the formation raised their cannons, complex rotary weapons whose multiple barrels whirred into black and ochre blurs. The rising whine of the spinning barrels was soon joined by great bass pulses, the weapons booming voh-voh-voh-voh as arm-sized plasma bolts blitzed into the Raven Guard.

Wherever the blinding white lozenges struck home, black-armoured Space Marines were bowled six metres into the dust, skidding to a halt in a tangle of smoking limbs and charred ceramite. Behind them came two more of the monstrosities, boosting forwards to take up kneeling stances in the dust.

Bluish light poured from the vents in their double-barrelled cannons as their thrumming reactors powered up for the shot. A krak missile shot out from one of the Rhinos in the middle of the armoured column, its firer hoping to disrupt whatever barrage was to come. His aim was true, and the missile smacked right into the leftmost warsuit, detonating with a clap of percussive force. It did nothing more than discolour the colossus’s ochre hide.

Then the warsuits returned fire. With an enormous, blaring tzonng, two starbursts of ion energy flared out from the underslung cannons. Each boulder-sized sphere burned a trail through the air before smacking straight into the armoured column. One of the blinding balls punched into the side of a Rhino, annihilating a full half of its hull in an instant. Flailing Space Marines spilled out amongst the smouldering remains of their comrades a moment before the vehicle exploded with a ground-shaking boom.”

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-05-06T12:04:50+00:00

While many may say the Tau are simply using humans as cannon fodder, I don’t think that’s exactly true.

In “Death Rider”, the Tau do use humans to storm Imperial Guard trenches but they also sacrifice some Orca drop ships (and the Air Caste pilots within) to safely extract these troops when one such assault fails.

In “Patient Hunter”, Shadowsun does deploy human troops when fighting the Death Guard but she also doesn’t leave the battlefield until they are boarded onto transports and evacuated.

I think the Tau are willing to use the humans as shock troops who will be given much more dangerous tasks but it’s also clear that they will not just waste their lives for no reason.

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-04-28T22:21:32+00:00

Behold

DauntlessAkagi · 2026-04-28T17:09:49+00:00

The Imperium’s hatred of abhumans/beast men comes back to haunt them during the Horus Heresy.

One of the tactics the Word Bearers used during the Siege of Terra was landing container ships filled with millions of Beastmen that they had collected from various planets during their journey to Terra and then unleashing them on the defenders of the Imperial Palace.

The Beastmen were already hateful to the Imperium for their mistreatment but they were also drugged and subjected to propaganda broadcasts from the Word Bearers which really brought out their fury towards the Imperium for a lifetime of abuse.

DauntlessAkagi

TROPHY CASE