Tau Ship Design

[Houston]

I have heard many who play BFG or even those who are starting it speak of their disdain for the design of the Tau fleet. They keep saying that the Tau ships in BFG look nothing like their vehicles in 40k and there is general displeasure over the design (heard one person refer to them as flying crates).

What does everyone here think? And, for that matter, what fleets do you really like the look of?

Personally, I was off-put by the Tau ships at first. I too did not believe there was a design continuity between the Tau fleet and their land-based tanks. But then I started to realize that the Tau empire is only a few thousand years old. Their spacefleet would not be very advanced. Their ships look very basic and utilitarian to me...just as spaceships look now (can't tell me that the International Space station looks sleek and streamlined...). This makes more sense than them having ships that look more advanced than the Eldar. Sure, their tanks look more advanced, but that's because I'm sure they've had tanks for longer than interstellar vessels, and also tanks are less sophisticated than spaceships.

Another thing to note is that the fleet is built by the Air Caste, whereas land-based war vehicles are built by the Fire Caste, so for sure there is going to be a design descrepancy. When considering all of this, I like the Tau fleet much more in terms of design and look. There are elements of Tau architecture in there, but they are also mixed with plenty of necessity. Now, when I compare the BFG Tau ships to those from Forgeworld (which a lot of people seem to prefer), I think the Forgeworld ships look far too advanced and streamlined. They look more like fighters and the Emissary class ship, while admittedly a nice design, looks like an advanced bomber as opposed to a capital class ship belonging to a fledgling empire.

I like the BFG Tau fleet, and I plan to start one soon to add to my Imperial, Chaos, and Eldar fleets.

But what do you think?

[strewart]

I do like the forgeworld ones more than GW, because of their looks. I know they are made by the air caste instead and that the Tau Empire is very young, but I still prefer them.

The GW ones are a bit boring, and the first Tau ships I saw were in Firewarrior. They are all like the fire caste ones with the same kind of colour scheme and everything so I'm more used to them.

As for which fleets I like the look of, the imperial ships look pretty cool to me. And my favourites are the necrons, I know some people say they look like flying boomerangs with pyramids on them but theres something about the design that I really like, and the colour scheme looks cool too. I'm thinking about getting a fleet of them soon, currently I only have Imperial and Chaos.

[DranZeR]

The Tau ships to me when I first saw them looked liked the rebel star ships in Star Wars: A new Hope. You know the one in the beginning when they're being chased by the big imperial star cruiser. I guess it was mostly the paint job that did it at first, but when i started looking at the blockyness of it, thats what it really reminded me of.

Overall I kind of like the Tau ships, I was never a really big fan of Tau, even in 40k (except for the battlesuits ) and the look of vehicles of the 40k Tau and the BFG Tau are completely different sort of set me off a bit. Now I know the land vehicles and star ships were built by different castes, but I expected them to at least have a bit on resemblance. So overall im a bit on the fence with this one.

I like the look of the Imperial fleet the best because they really remind me of the Greek ships way back when with how the bow looks and everything

[SlugEmpire]

Personally i think the design is really cool. When i first saw them i thought of those (bad guy) mobile suit thingys in gundam wing. i never liked gundam wing much... at all but i still think the tau's stuff looks pretty sweet.