i think that pathfinder is like the best pathfinder in the tau empire an hero level pathfinder. wasn't sub commander el'myamoto aka Darkstar to kill the assassin?

As I remember he made Nightbringer question whether it could survive being entombed for another few thousand years and said if he let the Smurfs go he wouldn't bury him.

I never questioned the actual bluffing of the Nightbringer more that Ventris unleashed a C'Tan who inspired the fear of death into the galaxy to save a single squad of UltraSmurfs.

I for one found it quite unlikely that near enough every special character belonging to the Tau Empire: Aun'va, Farsight, Shadowsun, Longstrike and Darkstryder happened to be in the same campaign together. I will say that I was surprised by the killing off of Aun'va. The leader of the Tau Empire being killed off was quite an eye opener.

Also I'm not entirely sure as I haven't brushed up on the tales of Uriel Ventris but wasn't there a retcon that basically made the Nightbringer just a fragmented shard in that instance.

That would be the Ward codex for Necrons. I keep forgetting about it mainly because I ignore it wherever possible.

It was but the problem was he basically solo'd it with zero effort. Really, the way he took out the assassin required no skill, planning or use of his enhanced abilities beyond a few vague mentions. All we got was about him thinking something seemed a little wrong, going up to a building, and then managing to more or less take down the sniper in two seconds flat with a flash bang and a magazine. This was more or less the same with every assassin, where the entire execution force were either written as morons so they could be easily defeated, or the book intentionally removed half of their equipment and abilities so the tau characters could take them down.

Though as much. Sorry, I was actually questioning Dark Knight's statement about having killed it more than anything else.

Well, that's certainly one thing to question indeed. Even counting the fact it was a key world within the Empire, it's quite a stretch to imagine them all in the same place. Okay, Shadowsun and Aun'va make sense given they were falling back, but Darkstrider was always noted to be moving with advanced forces and scouting out enemy worlds, and Longstrike just came out of freaking nowhere after being absent for the last two parts of the campaign.

As for killing Aun'va, well, that's kind of a problem in of itself. The book basically took a promising storyline, riddled it full of plot holes, dragged it kicking and screaming back to square one and beat it until the status quo was in full effect once more. The Tau Empire can't advance, the Imperium mysteriously doesn't have the forces to stop them again (even if, at this point, the had the absolute best advantage they could hope for to cripple the entire Empire in one blow) and the world which started the Third Sphere expansion is now in ruins. It's a big supposedly game changing event to have the spiritual leader of the Empire get killed, but we're never going to see anything come of it.

Though, speaking personally, i'd call it more of a mercy killing than anything else. Especially given how the whole "Ethereals are all secretly evil, 1984! 1984! 1984!" plotline was in full effect here.

Well, going from the codex it was more than just that. The last three codices Ward wrong repeatedly went out of their way to contradict or override the events of the Ultramarines novels. Methinks Ward took offense to McNeill trying to fix things with The Chapter's Due.

That book actually takes the cake for shittest campaign ever, because it made me ask the question...WHY didn't the Imperium just end the Tau then and there. Someone on a blog put it far more eloquently then I ever will.

"The Imperium's Warp drive allows them to bypass the event barring their continued advancement. They have been permitted to use Exterminatus level bombardments on targets and now have the resources free to launch a large scale crusade. Hell, they don't even need the ground forces, just the ships. The Imperium could have ships simultaneously launching virus bombs on T'au, Vior'la and Dal'yth within months, an act which would cripple the Empire. There's nothing here to suggest they can't or shouldn't do this either, and the Empire is only spared because the plot demands the Imperium retreats."

Not to mention the bullshit that is an Eversor losing to Farsight.

@blakey please do not post guild recruitment posts in other topics.

Hah, given i'm the one who wrote that very paragraph you're quoting, I can quite agree with that sentiment. You should look through the comments if you want more detailed examples of the sheer, raving insanity of that book though. As lengthy as my own analysis was, a frequent commenter on the blog really went to town on it. Damn shame as well, especially given how Kauyon was fairly good by most standards despite some bias towards the Tau Empire.

I really loved Kauyon. I got all kind of Raven Guard things, but it wasn't the usual 'Imperium destroys everything because plot armor' thing. The losses made things a little more interesting. Granted, as a Raven Guard fan/player, I'm used to most depictions of them being wholesale slaughters or serious retreats.

I must say Killbo I loved that review, you pretty much echoed my sentiments, when I first read the book at my GW. I just hate the recent downspiraling crappy lore trend in these recent books. Ever since Iron hands...I am just very worried. It seems like we get so much crap and the occasional good one, like the Legion of the Damned. I loved the damned codex, because of the amount of fluff it had, it was honestly refreshing. Even Black Legion I would consider to be good, because it quite literally saved the Black Legion fluffwise, even though it failed in the rules department. Kauyon too was quite good, even though it was blatantly favouring Tau, and the victory always felt inevitable.