Space Marines are cowards unwilling to fight without their powered armor while their fellows must make do with cardboard. Guardsmen must be cowed by commissars in order to fight.
Imperial Guardsmen cannot actually wear power armour and power armour is not in ubiquitous supply, whilst power armour increases survivability against cowards WHO CANNOT EVEN INTO CQC
Even the most cowardly penal legion forced to fight belies the fact that if the Guardsmen will not hold the line, the Commissar will hold the line, and all guardsmen can into CQC
They are all as a whole afraid to open their minds to new possibilities.
Not dumb enough to be ideologically subverted by Chaos and Tau more like
It's a two way street, no way in hell the Ethereals would ever let Tau convert to the worship of the Emperor
The Tau are not fearful of their fellow species in the galaxy. What are you afraid of, Imperium? Worker drones?
Aye, the Tau looked at walking BDSM spike and skull ninja elves and said "hey, those look like swell fellows. Let's say hello and have a cultural exchange." Consequences were pretty much what you'd expect, so the Tau made up for this by slaughtering Eldar who happened to look like the BDSM spike elves, sans spikes
One may as well fear a Grox. Our pathfinders are some of the bravest individuals you shall find. They know exactly what they're getting into. Our Ethereals provide inspiration, not control.
Yeah, inspiring pheremone control and mind control helmets lol
They extol us to reach for the heights of our ability, for the Greater Good. You fight in the name of death, hatred, and fear. Your Emperor would be ashamed of you, zealots.
Emperor wouldn't be ashamed, cos they fight for the Emperor
[Meanwhile the Emperor is eternally screaming cos he never asked to be worshiped, but it's not like Imperials know that lol]
Also it was a joke about people who make everything into a bravery debate where whoever's position is the most 'censored' is the winner. I get annoyed at them.
I mostly think of Tau as underdogs because for most factions, they're massive or it's just a matter of time before they win, theoretically.
Tau got nothing on the other factions, they don't have a single scenario where they can either destroy the galaxy or take it over, and they've got very little at stake, fighting only one war of extermination versus the nids whilst all the other factions are fighting wars of extermination against all the other factions
Tau are the only ones for whom their victory condition isn't either 'our full forces arrive' or 'our God arrives' or 'status quo' (DE). It's 'survive for another few centuries or millenia for super-good tech while what amounts to the end of days is upon us'.
No, look at the design philosophy
For every single faction, old is better. For Chaos this is because old tech and because older demons are more powerful, for the Imperium this is because they're relics of the Dark Age of Technology, for Eldar this is because they're relics (in fact their whole species is a relic) of their once peerless Empire, for Dark Eldar same as Eldar, for Necrons because they are immortals from the war of Heaven e.t.c.
Every faction that isn't the Orks or Nids, older is better because they are slowly losing to everything (perhaps? Story not advancing, but the overarching theme of 40k across most all factions is decay and sacrifice to keep things running in spite of the apocalypse. That and gothic architecture in space, with skulls and rock references everywhere). Tau break the mold cos they're young af, they haven't done anything that actually gives their loss meaning
The Necrontyr, the Eldar, the Imperium, they achieved the greatest - and have been suffering ever since, fighting to keep hold of whatever's left...