SALUTE
I have barely watched Breaking Bad
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Let's have another good week everyone 
Actually, no, the Tau aren't really soviet-inspired. The meme about them being communists is just wrong for a dozen reasons, but more importantly there just isn't really anything there to support the read besides the western brainworm of reading a semi-collectivist phrase like 'the greater good' and their heavy asian coding combining into 'oh these are evil commies' by people with more red scare in their brain than actual political analysis.
If you look at what Tau actually are there's a more compelling, actually intended (per writer statements) reading of them as NATO in their original release (original Tau were primarily characterised by their expansionism, auxilliaries, modern military tactics, and the greater good mantra. Of these only the last one is used to support the commie reading, but if you take all four together it places them as an imperialist power who are constantly expanding and pulling minor powers into their fold using the false consciousness of a greater good for all only to uphold Tau hegemony. This is also part of why the initial release emphasised the kroot/tau relations so much. Once you add the modern military aspect the association of all these traits isn't communists, but NATO. Remember warhammer is a wargame first, the actual military character of a faction is the primary part of it and is usually the part that makes the intended satire clearest) This gradually shifted over time into them being characterised by being orwellian bureaucrats when their lore focused more on Tau proper, which you could argue is 1980s soviets, but it's also just... Fascists. Orwellianisms are too vague of a satire to really be placed as a singular nation and time, obviously Orwell's works are anti-communist and so are modern Tau stories, but they're not really as explicit or vicious as the other satires in 40k. And the entire anti-communist aspect just falls flat hard.
Now if you want to talk about explicitly anti- communist satires in Warhammer the Genestealer Cults are right there being basically 1 to 1 Cultural Bolshevism conspiracies except literally true, even down to the communist revolution aesthetics.
AdMech and Tau are cool though, AdMech aesthetics are great and the inherent silliness of their lore is fun. And Tau can look utterly gorgeous with the right scheme and skills.
Fun! Drycha is very funny, yes. I'd highly recommend messing around with Spearhead when you buy the box, it's not quite as fun as the full game but it's way better than 10e's combat patrol for having small games. And it makes AoS almost affordable.
The fact that 40k is often a genuine attempt at lambasting rightwing militarism and values and shit, and then the tabletop equivalent of g*mers just eat the slop uncritically and say 'commie bad'. Lmao
Tbf 40k also does eat the slop uncritically and say commie bad. While some of its modern writers still make critiques, a lot of others just make unironic imperium apologia. Like there was a short story posted back during Psychic Awakening which was outright copaganda about how telling the immigrants to go away would have saved a planet from tyranids. Plus the setting is fundamentally anti-revolutionary in several ways.
But also yeah, G*mers are incredibly stupid about this shit and miss the intent of the older lore which is why modern lore is such a hellscape.
Something something capitalism subsumes all critique of itself
Ahhh, okay. Fair deal with the T'au. I was essentially basing that off what I knew about them from the first Ciaphus Cain novel, which makes them sound like Soviet parodies. Somehow, they've managed to not show up in any of the literature I've read since then. So that was greatly informative and I appreciate your write-up.
I'm definitely just going to go Adeptus Mechanicus then cause like, "The Flesh is Weak." =w= Really like what I've learned of them. And it just seems silly af to me that they use incense and prayers to operate machines.
I'm going to get the Spearhead whenever I can for Sylvaneth. Hopefully sometime in the near future. Definitely can't wait to start AoS, but I need a way into the lore. Probably just read the core rulebook once we get Skaventide.
There's a couple different good ways into AoS lore. From what I know of it the new core book should be a decent rundown of the current state of things and a basic introduction. Past that if you're a warhammer novel person Soul Wars or Godeater's Son are both excellent intros to the setting. I'd also recommend my favourite youtuber Dawnstir, they're an explicitly leftist warhammer video essay channel that has a few really good ones exploring AoS lore. The most recent one of them is about Godeaters Son though so if you want to read that book read it first. The rest of the videos on the channel are a mostly AoS and warhammer memes, with one mixed AoS/40k video.
Once I get home, I’m going to look into said YouTuber. Thanks for the recommendation there and the books. Ngl, the Warhammer books have been my reintroduction into reading, so I’m all for it.