Tau Characteristics

Weapon Skill - 15 + 2d10
Ballistic Skill - 20 + 2d10
Strength - 15 + 2d10
Toughness - 20 + 2d10
Agility - 25 + 2d10
Intelligence - 25 + 2d10
Perception - 20 + 2d10
Willpower - 20 + 2d10
Fellowship - 20 + 2d10

Alien Physiology - Humans need Forbidden Lore (Xenos) or suffer a -10 to Medicae tests on Tau. Human drugs have no effect. Human cybernetics need to be customised for Tau.

Tau gain Corruption but do not gain Malignancies or Mutations.

For The Greater Good! - Once per encounter, the Tau may gain +10 to a test while directly following an order from another Tau character. Additionally, if this order places the character into substantial danger to benefit the group as a whole, this bonus may - at the GM's discretion - increase to +30.

Non-Imperial - Tau suffer a -10 to all Imperium related lore tests.

Speak Not Unto The Alien - -20 to all Fellowship based tests when interacting with Imperials.

Tau regiments treat Tau equipment as two steps more available than regiments of another species.

Fire Warrior Specialisms;

Medic
Operator
Fire Warrior
Shas'ui
Pathfinder

Support Specialisms;

Ethereal
Kroot Warrior
Kroot Herder


Advanced Specialisms;

Drone Operator

Stealthsuit Pilot
Shas'el
Fireblade
Battlesuit Pilot
Kroot Shaper

Medic

Characteristic Bonus - +5 Intelligence

Starting Aptitudes - Ballistic Skill, Fieldcraft, Intelligence, Knowledge, Perception, Willpower

Starting Skills - Medicae, Scholastic Lore (Chymistry), Scrutiny OR Trade (Chymist)

Starting Talents - Cold Hearted OR Jaded, Weapon Training (Fire Caste Weapons)

Specialist Equipment - Diagnostor, Injector, Medkit

Wounds - 7 + 1d5

Advances - Medicae Auxiliary (As Medic), Field Treatment (As Medic)

Operator

Characteristic Bonus - +5 Agility

Starting Aptitudes - Agility, Ballistic Skill, Fellowship, Fieldcraft, Intelligence, Tech

Starting Skills - Common Lore *Tech) OR Navigate (Surface), Operate (Surface), Tech-Use

Starting Talents - Technical Knock, Weapon Training (Fire Caste)

Specialist Equipment - Auspex/Scanner, Common Craftsmanship mind-impulse unit, Combi-tool, Data-slate, Lascutter

Wounds - 6 + 1d5

Advances - Gunner (As Operator), Crack Manoeuvring (As Tank Ace)

Fire Warrior

Characteristic Bonus - +5 Ballistic Skill

Starting Aptitudes - Agility, Ballistic Skill, Fellowship, Fieldcraft, Finesse, Weapon Skill, Offence

Starting Skills - Athletics OR Survival, Navigate (Surface), Common Lore (Tau, War)

Starting Talents - Rapid Reload OR Quickdraw, Weapon Training (Fire Caste, Choose 2)

Specialist Equipment - 4 Photon Grenades OR 4 Haywire Grenades, Good Craftmanship Pulse Rifle OR Common Craftmanship Pulse Carbine OR Longshot Pulse Rifle OR Regimental Favoured weapon

Wounds - 7 + 1d5

Advances - Armsman (As Weapon Specialist), Hail of Fire (As Weapon Specialist)

Shas'ui

Characteristic Bonus - +5 Fellowship

Starting Aptitudes - Defence, Fellowship, Leadership, Perception, Strength, Toughness, Ballistic Skill

Starting Skills - Command, Navigate (Surface) OR Scholastic Lore (Tactics)

Starting Talents - Air of Authority OR Iron Discipline, Weapon Training (Fire Caste)

Specialist Equipment - Shield Drone, Positional Relay

Wounds - 9 + 1d5

Advances - Orders (As Sergeant), Markerlight (400xp)

Markerlight - The Comrade is equipped with a Markerlight item, which functions differently to the item as used by player characters. The Shas'ui may make a Challenging (+0) command test to give an Order as a Full Action for the Comrade, to mark the desired target, giving all allies +10 to hit that target for the duration of the round.

Pathfinder

Characteristics Bonus - +5 Agility

Starting Aptitudes - Agility, Ballistic Skill, Fellowship, Fieldcraft, Finesse, Perception, Tech

Starting Skills - Awareness OR Stealth, Deceive, Acrobatics

Starting Talents - Light Sleeper OR Heightened Senses (Sight, Smell, Taste), Weapon Training (Fire Caste), Deadeye Shot

Specialist Equipment - Longshot Pulse Rifle, Chameleoline Cloak, Markerlight, Tau Recon Armour

Wounds - 6 + 1d5

Advances - Terrain Expert (As Scout), Spotter (As Ratling)

Stealthsuit Pilot

New Aptitudes - Agility, Ballistic Skill, Fellowship, Fieldcraft, Finesse, Perception, Tech

Talents - Stealth Sniper OR Ambush & Blind Fighting

Specialist Equipment - Stealthsuit, Burst Cannon OR Fusion Blaster

Advances - None, due to power of Wargear.

Ethereal

Characteristics Bonus - +5 Fellowship

Starting Aptitudes - Fellowship, Leadership, Social, Perception, Strength, Weapon Skill, Willpower

Starting Skills - Charm OR Inquiry, Common Lore (Tau), Scrutiny, Command

Starting Talents - Unshakeable Faith, Weapon Training (Power, Fire Caste)

Specialist Equipment - Staff

Wounds - 8 + 1d5

Advances - Curate (As Priest), Righteous Oration (As Priest)

Kroot Characteristics

Weapon Skill - 25 + 2d10
Ballistic Skill - 20 + 2d10
Strength - 20 + 2d10
Toughness - 20 + 2d10
Agility - 25 + 2d10
Intelligence - 15 + 2d10
Perception - 20 + 2d10
Willpower - 20 + 2d10
Fellowship - 15 + 2d10

Alien Biology - Non-Kroot always suffer a -10 penalty to Medicae tests to treat a Kroot. Kroot may not receive cybernetic implants.

Human equipment modified for use by Kroot is one step rarer than it's normal value.

Eaters of the Dead - See Into The Storm, page 49

Fieldcraft - Kroot gain +10 to Stealth tests. Kroot do not treat forests, jungles or similar environments as difficult terrain.

Kroot Beak - Natural weapon with the profile 1d5 + SB R, Primitive (7)

Kroot Physiology - When a Kroot wears armour heavier than 3 AP, they lose the benefit of the Fieldcraft trait.

Kroot receive +20 to resist Seduction by Non-Kroot.

Non-Imperial - Kroot suffer a -10 Penalty to all Imperium related knowledge tests.

Speak Not Unto The Alien - Kroot suffer a -20 penalty to fellowship based tests when interacting with members of the Imperium.

Kroot gain Corruption Points as normal, but are influenced differently by Malignancies, becoming more feral.

Kroot suffer Insanity as Normal.

Kroot Warrior

Characteristic Bonus - +5 Weapon Skill or +5 Ballistic Skill

Starting Aptitudes - Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Offence, Finesse, Agility, Fieldcraft

Starting Skills - Awareness, Stealth, Dodge

Starting Talents - Weapon Training (Kroot, Low-Tech.), Light Sleeper OR Heightened Senses (Sight, Hearing)

Specialist Equipment - Kroot Rifle, Kroot Leathers

Starting Wounds - 14 + 1d5

Advances - Silent Ambush (As Scout), Watch My Back! (As Brawler)

Kroot Herder

Characteristics Bonus - +5 Perception

Starting Aptitudes - Perception, Leadership, Strength, Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Fieldcraft

Starting Skills - Survival, Navigate (Surface)

Starting Talents - Weapon Training (Kroot, Low-Tech), Skilled Rider

Specialist Equipment - Kroot Rifle, Kroot Leathers.

Special Comrade - The Kroot Herder trades his usual comrade for either a Krootox Mount or a Kroot Hound companion.

Starting Wounds - 12 + 1d5

Advances - Warbeast (300xp), Little'un (As Ogryn, refluffed)

Warbeast - The Kroot Herder makes a challenging Survival test to drive their brutish companion strain Kroot to attack. Degrees of success on this attack are used to determine the number of hits scored by the creature.

Drone Operator

New Aptitudes - Ballistic Skill, Intelligence, Tech, Knowledge, Finesse

New Talents - Combat Formation & Weapon Tech OR Munitorum Influence (Refluffed)

Specialist Equipment - Drone Controller, Target Lock

Advances - Priority Fire, Swarm Protocols, Drone Harbinger

Priority Fire (300xp) - May direct a Drone to fire at a specified target as a Half-Action Order for the Drone.

Swarm Protocols (400xp) - May issue standard orders as sweeping orders to Drones up to the Operator's Intelligence Bonus.

Drone Harbinger (400xp) - The Drone Operator adds a Drone comrade of his choosing. (Gun-Drone, Sniper-drone, Markerlight Drone, Shield Drone). This advance may be taken up to five times.

Shas'el

New Aptitudes - Fellowship, Intelligence, Leadership, Social, Toughness, Ballistic Skill

New Talents - Air of Authority & Combat Formation OR Heroic Inspiration

Specialist Equipment - Positional Relay, Rail Rifle

Advances - Born Leader (As Commander), Orders (As Commander)

Fireblade

New Aptitudes - Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Toughness, Offence, Defence, Agility, Leadership.

New Talents - Two Weapon Wielder (Melee) & Two Weapon Wielder (Ranged) OR Sidearm

Specialist Equipment - Power sword, Heavy Combat Armour (8 All), Pulse Pistol

Advances - Dual Prowess, Firestorm

Dual Prowess (500xp) - The Fireblade is capable of using Basic class weapons so well one handedly, that he treats them as pistol weapons for the purpose of dual wielding.

Firestorm (500xp) - Full Order Action. Any member of the squad may, for the duration of this turn, make two attack actions each using their half actions as normal. The Fireblade may not move or dodge during this time. This order requires a Challenging (+0) Command Test to activate.

Battlesuit Pilot

New Aptitudes - Agility, Fieldcraft, Intelligence, Tech, Ballistic Skill

New Talents - Advanced Battlesuit Training* OR Leap-Up & Dead-Eye Shot

Specialist Equipment - Crisis Suit or Broadside Suit, One Battlesuit Weapon of Choice.

Advances - None

* Advanced Battlesuit Training - Now only reduces your size category by 1 when piloting a Battlesuit.

Kroot Shaper

New Aptitudes - Perception, Leadership, Social, Willpower, Fellowship, Weapon Skill

New Talents - Prophetic Dreams (see Into The Storm) OR Iron Discipline, Nerves of Steel

New Traits - Instinctual Understanding, Shamanic Powers (See Into The Storm)

Specialist Equipment - Kroot Rifle OR Pulse Rifle. Kroot Armour OR Tau Recon Armour.

Advances - Call the Kindred, Commander and Sergeant Orders.

Call the Kindred (400xp) - The Shaper adds another Kroot comrade to his retinue (of any type). This advance can be taken multiple times up to the Shaper's Perception Bonus.

For the Drone Operator, I'm thinking Swarm Protocols from RT and possibly the opportunity for multiple drone comrades would be quite interesting.

Drone Comrade rules by themselves could be interesting too. Perhaps they could be used to intrinsically reverse the rules for whether an attack hits the comrade or the player if the controlling player desires. Definitely would be interesting to have a Drone as an unusual comrade.

Stealthsuit Pilot seems like it should be an Advanced Specialty. Advancing from Pathfinder to Stealthsuit Pilot seems like a natural progression, and there's already a good breadth of 5 other normal specialties to be used.

Part of me wants to see rules for Gue'vesa regiments as well. Granted there's a lot that still needs to be done here, but it's an interesting idea that I feel merits exploration.

Wouldn't a Gu'vesa regiment just be a guard regiment with Tau equipment and a lack of Commisars?

Wouldn't a Gu'vesa regiment just be a guard regiment with Tau equipment and a lack of Commisars?

I feel like there is room for specialized Regiment creation rules here, but I am drawing a blank. Obviously it should be more involved than simply being a Guard unit with Tau gear and no Commissars.

That's just it. I can't think of much either.

Not sure what to make of Stealthsuit being an Advanced. Makes sense I suppose. Need to get this finished up. Just been busy with work. Need to come up with some creative advances hehe.

Just spit balling here but some sort of talent that has to do with being a part of (or formerly of) the Farsight Enclave.

Perhaps a passive ability that allows the Fire Warrior a greater degree of battle flexibility... or... something that also imposes penalties when they come into contact with Ethereals.

That would be a regimental trait, I think. For playing as the Farsight Enclaves.

just asking before I bit, but is your aim to make it as close to Tau as possible, or is it simply a Imperial Guard version of the Tau?

I believe the aim is to make a Tau army. So that players, GMs could have the option of running an Only War game from the perspective of the Tau.

Pearl is entirely correct.

The point of this exercise is to allow players and GMs to explore life in 40k from a Tau perspective using the Only War mechanics.

Hence why certain elements like the Medic were considered for the purpose of keeping the game functional.