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[Rolepgeek]

Yeah but Taros wasn't a Hive Planet.

[LordBaal]

On Taros I don't recall properly (even when I recently read the book again). But if I recall correctly the thing was that they couldn't bring enough troops, and lost at least an entire regiment on space to the new Tau ships. Also they didn't knew how much Tau troops where there, and I think the 9K number was of Tau alone, plus a few thousands of miner gangs and whatnot.

It's still horrendously low.

It is, however I cut them some slack because the pop on the planet was really low too, and it had only one city.

Let get some numbers from Lexicaum and warhammer40k.wikia. According to them Taros had a population of around 12 million people.
The PDF who I guess where all traitors numbered around 8000, the 100 hundred Hunter Cadres (around a SM company in size) put the number of Tau soldiers around 8000~9000, plus around 5000 kroot auxiliaries.

If we round up the numbers we get around 21~22 thousand troops, to this you have to add up the mining gangs, which I expect to be in higher numbers on a freaking mining planet. Also ogryns where on this bands, which would give them an extra edge. Let's say they where a mere 8000 (same as pdf, one worker per every soldier, but logic dictates it would be higher, yet not all workers would be also fighters), this would give the defenders a body strength around 30.000~40.000 (if you allow more than one gang fighter per PDF soldier). For a planet of mere 12 million people it seems all right in fact, given that they where all concentrated mostly in one spot.

The number on the IG side escapes me, but 12 regiments sounds like something around the park of 100K troops. Yes I now some regiments where small, but let's count the ones that are not and also some other personnel. Which seems reasonable, it would outnumber the potential defenders and seems more than enough to quench 12 million people, specially with the help of SM and a fleet above their heads.

As for casualties, you seem to recall only the death, but casualty not only counts the KIA (10k of them), it also encompass the WIA and MIA, which where respectively 15000 and around 20000, which add up to a total of around 45000 lost combatants, or roughly half the army, not counting that one regiment got completely wiped out before setting any foot and some even didn't got to show up.

I think the numbers aren't as crazy as you might think. Of course that's only my opinion.

[Sheb]

That's still a tiny number of PDF. Belgium with about the same population got over 30,000 active duty personnel. And the Grim Darkness of the EU is full of paperwork and memos about the proper shape of cucumber, not war.

[LordBaal]

And my country with barely 30 million people has over 250K active personnel plus million and a half on reserves. Yes, this world and the Warhammer universe are crazy.

Remember that PDF are maintained by the planetary government, I guess the Taros governor got away with having so little PDF because there weren't real threats beyond the lack of water and some uprisings, that's it, until he got into dealing with the tau. I would think he minimized the PDF before hand in case they became a liaison or tried to remain loyal to the Imperium.

Or perhaps he was really cheap and confident it's planet was relatively calm, so he could get by with it and got the money into his pockets at the same time.

[Loud Whispers]

Yeah but Taros wasn't a Hive Planet.

Taros was an arid desert planet, not exactly the kind of planet I'd expect to be able to support large human populations. Also consider that Hive planets tend to have been built over several millennia of population growth and urban development, so much so that their buildings sometimes escape the atmosphere.
This would allow for a population far vaster than Malthusian calculations would expect.

[Rolepgeek]

Yeah but Taros wasn't a Hive Planet.

Taros was an arid desert planet, not exactly the kind of planet I'd expect to be able to support large human populations. Also consider that Hive planets tend to have been built over several millennia of population growth and urban development, so much so that their buildings sometimes escape the atmosphere.
This would allow for a population far vaster than Malthusian calculations would expect.

My point was that it wasn't a Hive Planet. It was a Desert/Mining Planet, with a pop of 12 million. Which is pretty damn small (that scaling seems a bit off to me too, but I guess you only need so many miners with 40k tech), but still. One would expect a force at least larger than that of a measly five roman legions.

LordBaal, the thing is, they weren't concentrated on one spot. It's true that only something like eight of the actual regiments got to fight (one died en rout, the other was forgotten about), and they were only given ten in the first place, but I mean, even so, only a hundred thousand people sent, with that large of a fleet of warships?

The US had more troops than that in Iraq, for years. If a country with a mere 300 million people or so can manage that in a comparatively far off nation, the Imperium of Man with it's human wave tactics (as in, the fact that it has the population to sustain such) should be able to manage at least that much for a few months. Population of the planet be-damned, it's a mining world with output meant for an important forge world, being attacked by vile xenos. You'd think they'd bother to give a damn. The PDF, goddamn, the governor oughta be able to afford more given the trade with the Tau. Maybe he didn't need to, considering all the work gangs were loyal to him/their bosses (who were, in turn, loyal to Tau coin), but still.

Also I hate the fact that they measured in Hunter Cadres, so they could say 'hundreds' as though each operates completely independently while in full scale warfare. Really, I just hate that the Tau have such a poor organization structure for large-scale military action. Contingents being the only real semi-permanent grouping larger than a Cadre. And they contain, what, 3-6 Cadres? So, maybe 400 Fire Warriors at most, plus vehicles and support staff, maybe a thousand individuals in all at the very most. I know it's designed so that players can create their own fluff, but...goddamnit, guys. Figure it out. Permanent military groupings larger than a hundred people are, in fact, useful.

In case you haven't noticed, I like the Tau(part of the reason is the Orwellian undertones, to be honest). I don't like everything about them. I also like the Space Marines. I mean, they're half-brainwashed testosterone-poisoned genocidal drama queens, but that makes some excellent storytelling opportunity. ((also honestly why haven't the Tau recovered a few bodies at the least and figured out how to make super-soldiers of their own already damnit they obviously have the tech for it and the naivety/inventiveness to try; Battlesuits are nice but they're also bulky as fuck))

[Egan_BW]

Because geneseed is empratech and empra it's a xenophobic fuck and probably designed it to only work on humans. (And only male humans, at that.)

[Tack]

((Honestly why haven't the Tau recovered a few bodies at the least and figured out how to make super-soldiers of their own already damnit they obviously have the tech for it and the naivety/inventiveness to try))

I mean I don't want you to go weeaboo on me but they probably couldn't reverse engineer it.

Well, actually, if Fabius Bile can I expect the homonculi can, and if the Eldar can then the Tau are probably up to it.

... I mean, wait for the 7th Ed codex to come out. With the direction GW's been going, I wouldn't be surprised if they have minotaus.

[Rolepgeek]

Oh, I don't mean geneseed. I'm certain they couldn't reverse engineer that. The Emprah himself, who invented the damn stuff, had issues getting it to be stable. Trying to adapt it to their own physiology? Although, I can see them trying to create Space Marines of their own(and subsequently being ground into the dirt by an infuriated Imperium bringing down the wrath of probably half the Space Marine Chapters in the galaxy and then some) with the Gue'la they're getting. Probably less hyper-aggressive and more Tau-like in terms of gear, but the tactics the two use are fairly similar, so I can see them trying. Not succeeding, not for a while, at least, since they'd need to figure out how Progenoid glands work basically by trial and error, but hey, you know. An attempt is an extremely heretical attempt.

I just mean like they already have eugenics programs, so I don't see why they haven't been inspired to try for some advanced genetic engineering of their own. They don't have nearly as many risks of mutation and such from Chaos, after all. Might go better for them. On the other hand, I feel like subconscious psychic powers or gestalt fields or whatever were part of what made the Primarchs so ridiculously powerful, so maybe it would be less effective.

Spoiler: WARNING, SPACE COMMUNISM DETECTED (click to show/hide)

...to be fair, though, I kinda wish they'd just give lower-ranking Ethereals battlesuits and power/vibro-honor blades or something and have some elite melee troops that would then inspire everyone around them, to boot, too. Be pretty badass all around, I think.

[Loud Whispers]

Tau trying to make spehss taurines would make for a good Dark Heresy campaign

[Tack]

I think he means Gue'vesa marines.

Though Tau seem to be leery of playing around with biology. They're great with tech, not so much with squick.
Maybe there's a canon thing to explain it, who knows.

'Elite melee troops' seems like something forgeworld would've made.

Which is part of the reason I dislike forgeworld. Armies which have a specific weakness get that specific weakness easily plugged by that one forgeworld unit.

[Loud Whispers]

As an addendum, GW does not need more excuses to create more spess marines

[Xantalos]

As an addendum, GW does not need more excuses to create more spess marines

Given that they turned the end of Fantasy into 'MAGIC SPESS MEHRENS', yes they don't need excuses given to them.

[Kot]

Because geneseed is empratech and empra it's a xenophobic fuck and probably designed it to only work on humans. (And only male humans, at that.)

Actually, it's kinda, you know... Geneseed is based on Emperor own genetic code... while it's true that he has shapeshifting abilities and apparently was a woman at least once... but well, it works on warp fuckery, so we're not sure if that modifies the actual code, and he proably was in his regular, human male form at that point.
Well, the women have different sex chromosomes, which, considering geneseed is a modification of their Primarch code and by extent, His own. The aliens, if they even use chromosomes, proably have them completly different than humans, so it makes it not possible to work on them too. While theoretically, with enough work on genetics it could proably be possible to use at least pieces of it in females, it would be much harder to make it work for aliens, though... proably even impossible.

Mind that I have barely any idea how this genetics shit work, so you know...

[Grim Portent]

The creation of the Space Marines and their Primarchs was as much magic as it was science, the Emperor is implied to have stolen power from the Chaos Gods to create the Primarchs, and a little of the magic present in their nature was passed to the marines, with even more being added by the chaos gods attempts to take vengeance on the Emperor for the theft.

In theory geneseed could work on women if it's not based on affecting the sex chromosomes in any way, but since geneseed acceptance is highly dependent on hormone levels, anatomy, diet and a whole bunch of other stuff the rejection rate in female subjects would probably be too high to be worth bothering with considering how few males actually survive implantation with geneseed. Add in the spiritual connection to the Primarchs/Emperor involved in geneseed (Night Lords and Blood Angels being prime examples) and it's possible that only men can become space marines due to something about the way souls work in 40k.

Of course it really just doesn't work in women because the guys who made it up were just writing according to a bunch of narrative tropes and knew bugger all about science, with ad-hoc justifications being slapped on as the fluff got more fleshed out over the years.

As for sticking it in xenos/ imitating it... BWAHAHAHAHAHA! 

Even the Dark Eldar Haemonculi don't actually know (or care) anything much about geneseed and other marine organs other than as a delicacy to eat or a mild scientific curiosity. They already have science/magic that surpasses the techniques used to make geneseed by far, they just limit it with their concepts of elegance and art. They can literally turn flesh and bone into an inert clay like substance and sculpt it  into different shapes and tissue types according to their whims as long as they have time and the necessary equipment.


The Tau could in theory make some roided up Tau supersoldiers, but genetics isn't their strong point. The Earth Caste serve as their scientists and they specialise in architecture and engineering, with which they bypass the need for supersoldiers. Who needs Tau supersoldiers when a battlesuit does most of the same things and is more mass produceable after all.