The Tau are an entire race of Nulls. Millions upon millions of soulless beings with absolutely no presence in the Warp. But the Tau have no resistance to psychic powers during gameplay, nor do they affect Psykers in any way. With the advent of 6th edition and the allies rules, the Tau and Eldar are battle brothers. In theory a unit of Fire Warriors could be led by a Farseer, and for gameplay purposes this is a killer combo, but doesn't strike me as quite following the fluff. Wouldn't the Tau's proximity to the Farseer disrupt his abilities, or even have the potential to cause him harm?

What do you guys think?
O'Ba'cho

No their proximity wouldn't affect anything because they're not Nulls.

They have virtually no presence in the Warp- hence why there are no Tau psykers- but that's not the same as absolutely no presence.

 

So the Tau aren't entirely soulless, just barely register.
Well... that pretty much solves it, thank you.
That makes the Tau/Eldar teamup much more feasible, thanks for the clarification Spikey.

What I figure then is that the Eldar have noticed this in the Tau, and realizing they are almost immune to the effects of chaos, have offered themselves as guides or mentors to the young race as a ploy to gain a useful ally against the dark gods?

This would make a lot of sense with the Eldar slowly dying out and the Tau, while living the shortest of lives (about 40 years) as compared to their ancient allies, achieving so much in the short time they have: When the crap hits the fan and the universe is on the brink the Eldar will need some sort of muscle that Slaanesh can't mind-rape into madness or be turned into puss oozing children of Nurgle before they can be used as pawns in the elder race's epic chess game against chaos.

 

What I figure then is that the Eldar have noticed this in the Tau, and realizing they are almost immune to the effects of chaos, have offered themselves as guides or mentors to the young race as a ploy to gain a useful ally against the dark gods?

The connection between the Craftworld Eldar and the Tau Empire, if any, has been drawn from two sources. First is a quote from Eldrad Ulthran:

I have followed the myriad potential futures of the Tau with great interest. Though barely even striplings compared to us, I feel a strange protectiveness towards them. In time I believe they will exceed even our greatest feats and master the darkness within their souls.

And the second is the implications in Xenology which suggest the Eldar may have had a hand in the development of the Ethereal Caste.

But just to clarify; the Tau are not immune to Chaos, and I would struggle to find how they could become a useful ally for the Eldar against the insidious nature of Chaos.

 

There is a great deal of difference between not having a warp presence and being a null.

The topic is touched on only briefly between the Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels, but a null is essentially an anti psyker rather than literally soulless.


Whereas a psyker channels warp energy due to the structure of their brain forming a bridge between warp and reality, a blank or a null negates warp energy due to their brain structure having the exact opposite effect.

A blank is not actually soulless, their souls enter the warp upon death like any other. When they're alive however, their physiological properties just make it seem that way.


As CotE said, the Tau are neither of these. Their low warp presence may make them resistant to Chaos, but it does not make them completely immune and it does not grant them anti psyker abilities.

 

I think in 'Atlas Infernal' Czevak uses a very powerful null being/remnant to horribly kill psychically attuned marines/eldar?
This means that whilst it hasn't really been touched upon that it is suggested there is a heirarchy so to speak.

Hopefully we will find out more in Pariah

 

@Ba'cho See part off your reasoning seems...I dont wanna say flawed but colored Tau as a xenos race you cant assume that because they dont have "human" emotional responses makes them any less emotional then humans themselves.

Take Eldar for example they are stated as being very emotional however dont really outwardly express this. They have a cast system as well when it comes to there people.

The way I see the Tau and the warp is thinking about it as a each race has a tube that the flow of the warp is regulated by the races pyschic potential the more potential the more warp the race pulls down the tube. So the Tau having next to nothing have almost nothing coming down the tube. It doesnt effect there race as a whole like others cause the chaos gods dont even know they exist or dont care that they exist.