Re-working Tau.

[Nanolathe]

As many of you will know this is a Tau helmet (excuse the poor drawing skills, I'm just knocking this out quickly to prove a point so forgive my rambling... It's important I assure you ). It's sleek, stylish and made for a purpose (Tau can't see very well and the helmet augments their sight range)

Now, inside the helmet is their head, obviously... which is to be honest... a grey skull face and mostly humanoid (with the nose and ears removed).
This is infuriating to me.
A perfectly good alien race and GW has to screw it up by making them humanoid once again.

So I got thinking about Tau physiology: Why do they have hooves? To run fast on open ground. Why would they need to do this? Well there are two answers; run down fast moving prey, or outrun fast moving predators. Almost every land predator has binocular (and relatively good) vision. While it is prey have greater peripheral (but poorer quality) vision. A heightened olfactory sensitivity coupled with the presence of (vestigial) secondary stomachs and a dental structure that would be idealised for eating vegetation leads me to believe that the Tau, early in their evolution were not predator, but prey. What I don't understand then, is why the Tau (as GW has modelled for us) have forward pointing eyes which should give them excellent binocular vision... and yet tell us that they have bad eyesight. What happened GW? What gave them forward pointing eyes... and bad vision?

An arbitrary decisions says I, based on no logic.

Now the logical thing to do is have everyone's helmet on, right? Well that's sort of what I planed to do with my army... but I really want to satisfy my curiosity...

Tau don't look like the things GW draw and model for us.
So what do they look like?

Can anyone give me some ideas for conversion?
Better yet can anyone here draw their ideas? (I have a few of my own which I'll post later when I spend more time on them)
I'd almost like to find a reason for that swept back helmet... Horns maybe?
Definitely not human in any way... Something alien, that could fit inside that helmet... a Herbivore look?

If you don't have any ideas that you want to share then tell me... Do you think I'm 'bouncing off the wall' crazy? Do you hate the look of un-helmed Tau? Please tell me I'm not alone in my hate...

[Lord Commander Erus]

Almost like the old duckbilled dinos maybe? A sort of crest/fluted bone ridge thing?

[Prince of the Night]

I was never a fan of the featureless faces of the tau. I would have pictured them with small pointed ears, and possibly 3 nostrils forming a triangle. The eye sockets ae also too small.

[Zeb[edee]]

Perhaps Games Workshop fell asleep during biology? Thats my two cent. Or about one penny at the current exchange rate.

Either way, I think that the swept back design would be a wind resistance thing? Their guns are pretty big and powerful and would cause a recoil so perhaps they are trying to reduce the amount of effect that wind has on the movement combined with the recoil? So perhaps it is not a physiology thing but an adaptation to keep their aim true?

I would imagine that being aliens the differences between prey and predator would be quite different. Perhaps the prey is the fauna on the planet and every animal is a predator? Just spit balling here.

[Nanolathe]

I'm really not thinking that their weapons' recoil causes adverse wind conditions Zeb. It's definitely a style thing, rather than a practical thing as far as I can see.

[Warmaster Romulas]

perhaps it a tribute to an ancient tau hair style
or some old time helmet crest from before their technilogical advance
and they just carried it over

[Nanolathe]

I would have thought so, yes.

[Zeb[edee]]

Originally Posted by Nanolathe

I'm really not thinking that their weapons' recoil causes adverse wind conditions Zeb. It's definitely a style thing, rather than a practical thing as far as I can see.

You make me think i am a fool there >.<
What i meant was that combined with the wind the recoil could put off their aim.


Along the style wise, perhaps its a tradition that the Tau themselves cant remember why it is one? That is a likely GW explanation. Mostly because it gets them out of thinking.

[Nanolathe]

It's not the style I'm talking about anyway.. it's how they should look underneath the helmet.

Just to put us back on topic

Hmm...


Fur, Feathers, Scales, Skin?
Beak, Mouth, Mandibles?
Horns, Frills, Hair?

[munkey joe paints]

HUMMMM Quite interesting......I would think them as "Birdy" as they are small and frail. this would correspond with them being bad in CC as birds have hollow light bones. But bird for the most part have keen eyes so........

[themandalorian]

I don't get, why is there like one eye hole on their helmet?

[Warmaster Romulas]

the one eye hole would be like monocular


but i have it nano
its where the sensor package(and comms) of the helm is kept
instead of putting a big box
you know how tau like stuff to be smooth so they swept the back of the helm for asthetic value

[Ikarus]

There are tau models without helmets yeah? So they would just look the same.

Again, Eldar can follow this concept. They dont have huge heads, they are just elves.

There are things in the helmet though.

[Warmaster Romulas]

i like the lizard type one for conversion
you could probably use skink heads from WFB

[Nanolathe]

@Warmaster, Oh I know that they'll put something in the back of their helmet, be it Comms, Sensors or just a battlefield ration of chocolate. What I'm thinking about, is not what but why they would make it like that. When a human makes armour we make it the shape of our skull, body, leg, foot, etc (more or less)... Tau didn't do anything like that for JUST their helmets, while the rest of their armour is 'Correct' the helmet sticks out. It could be like the plume on a centurions helmet, merely there to make it look impressive, but like I said in the first post... I'd like to make up a reason for it to be like that, rather than just "It looks cool" or "They have to put the Battlefield Chocolate Ration somewhere..."