The Tau vs The Covenant | Which Empire is more Powerful? 

TLDR - Which ever faction uses my Factor discount code wins : strms.net/factor75_majorkill18 After all you can't commit genocide with an energy sword on a low protein diet :)

Video idea: what if one of the factions were to die, like the Orcs, Tyranids, etc.? How would the galaxy react?

Strongest Tau Gundam: 😊 Average Grunt with a Fuel Rod cannon: 🗿

One big nitpik. In Halo, humanity wasnt really holding the Covanent back at all. They were losing at an alarming rate. The only reason humanity won was because of Master Chief destroying the Halo, and the great schism, which resulted in the Elites joining the side of humanity. If the schism didn't happen, the Covanent would have stopped humanity so hard.

Now imagine the T'au freeing a Covenant engineer and it going ham repairing their tech

“Halo would get stomped” The Forerunners would like a word with you

One slight nitpick towards the end is that the Covenant DID try to counter the Spartans by creating their own versions, however they ultimately didn’t put too much funding into the project leading to only a handful of the super soldiers being made. There are several YT videos by HALO nerds about this very thing, and how it failed.

Forerunners vs Old School Necrons would be an absolute banger.

The real ending is both combining to become a serious menace

"Halo get stompped without a second thought" Someone tag PancreasNoWork here he might have a thing or two to say about that

Humanity wasn’t holding back the Covenant at all and saying that is genuinely underselling the hopelessness of the situation the UNSC was up against. It may look all fine and dandy when you are playing the character whose defining trait is his unimaginable luck but from the perspective of the rest of humanity they were fighting a losing battle and it wasn’t even close. Another Warhammer and Halo RU-vid called PancreasNoWork touches up on this pretty well.

Tau vs Imperium is basically a backwards version of Halo.

The two settings actually fit together so well. The forerunners are basically analogues to the Necrontyr, and the AI stuff totally fits into the trajectory humanity goes through before the men of iron become a problem.

Interesting Halo lore tidbit, in lore the Covenant only really landed troops on planets when there was Forerunner stuff they wanted to acquire, most of the time they would just destroy everything in orbit then glass all the population centers without ever stepping foot on the planet before moving on to the next, so if the Covenant did fight the Tau and was committed to genocide them then 99% of the war would be space combat unless Forerunner stuff was added to a lot of Tau planets but then that could radically change Tau tech

Any one else feel like Pancreas no Work might react to this?

Covenant: "Your destruction is the will of the gods! And we are their instrument!" Tau 1: "Was that just the gue'la again?" Tau 2: "It definitely sounded like them."

Keep in mind, propaganda is gonna play a crucial role in that fight. Considering how bad certain species like the Grunts are treated in the Covenant (who are by far the most numerous as well) the water caste would have quite an easy time convincing a huge amounts of them to defect to their side. Sure, Brutes, Hunters and Elites would not be as easily convinced but everyone alse would be fair game.

Hunters reproduce by splitting like a cell, there exists entire armys composed of different types of hunters meant for different purposes; they could easily number in the hundreds, and all share a hive mind of sorts led by Hunter Captains.

that specific instance of the Infinity ramming into that Covenant Cruiser is NOT indicative of the UNSC's overall slipspace capability. the Infinity is a special ship that incorporates the best and most expensive tech the UNSC has. its slipspace drive is Forerunner in origin which is superior to the Covenant's slipspace drives and the Covenant's Slipspace drives are better than the Average UNSC Slipspace drive.

Would it though? I get that 40k does crazy bananas level things, but the Forerunners had technology at least equivalent to the war in heaven Necrons, and the Precursors had at minimum Old One's technology being both intergalactic and transentient. One of them alone is quite literally the Flood.

" Covenant doesn't have battle suits." *Sad Goblin noises*

The Covenant only send ground forces when searching for forerunner artifacts. If a plenet didn't have any they would just glass it.

You're forgetting that until the discovery of Installation 01 and the Flood, the Covenant weren't just winning, they were close to making humanity go extinct.

One thing that is often missed is that, if it weren't for the events of the halo games, the humanity in halo would have gotten stomped. The Spartans were not enough to stop or even significantly delay the Covenant. An easy example is Reach. Reach is a critically important human world with immense defenses, but from the moment the covenant discovered it, it was only a matter of when, not if it was annihilated. That's the point of the Reach game. No matter how hard Humanity fights in a conventional war, the covenant will eventually win. Master chief is the savior of humanity, not by soloing the entire covenant, but by being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to destroy the covenant fundamentally via the halo rings and experiences with the arbiter. This misconception that the UNSC could win against the covenant if the Halo rings were never found often leads to them being scaled lower than they should

Who would win in a _Rule 34_ contest between the Covenant and the Tau? Oh no.... I've just inspired crossover art haven't I?

“That day when the Tau faced the Covenant was where they learned that high powered Gauss Rifles and Mech Suits don’t count for much when you're outnumbered 15-1." -Lord Governor House

My biggest problem with this video is that he uses the smallest numbers for the Covenant. I my opinion the Covenant had hundreds of thousands of colonies because the Forerunners had millions of world and the the Covenant did was look for those words. Plus the Covenant had tens of thousands ships to use.

Honestly, I think the greatest advantage the Covenant would have in contrast to the T'au Empire is the Spangheli (the Elites). "Brute ships - staggered lines. Shipmaster! They outnumber us 3-to-1!" _"Then it is an even fight..."_

So..basically the Tau vs a genocidal theocracy with weird religious customs and girth. Doesn't ring a bell

The High Charity Fleets, I say fleets as there were always multiple fleets at HC as it was also a major shipyard/Fleet tender, usually numbered around 1000 ships. There are no real solid numbers as the fleets that would be present fluctuated but it is stated in lore by multiple characters that the ships around HC always numbered around an estimated 1000. On another note the larges fleet outside HC defense fleets was not the fleet that attacked Reach, it was the Fleet at the Unyielding Hierophant, a mobile station, that was destroyed by Blue Team in Halo First Strike. the Fleet there numbered around 500 Capital Ships.

Checked out when he said that the tau have better ranged units..better that the jackal…. It’s obvious he never played halo 2 on legendary, those damn sniper jackals would tear through the tau ranks.

Using the Infinity to compare UNSC slipspace to Covenant slip is a dishonest comparison given that the Infinity uses a FORERUNNER slipspace engine.

Credit where it's due to the covenant, while they were on the back foot eventually, they were heavily disadvantaged after the combination of dealing with the flood AND the infighting of elites and brutes, which lead to the elites mostly leaving the covenant. If not for these factors the UNSC would've had significantly more trouble.

How were Imperial Army units treated by each Primarch?

Episode idea: Gold Age of Technology humans - 40k universe versus Gold Age of Humanity - Halo universe

Both Shadowsun and Master Chief have been chosen to represent their respective faction, but the Covenant was completely left out on named characters. I dare say that if we were to include Xytan 'Jar Wattinree, Rtas 'Vadum, Thel 'Vadam, and even Tartarus for their respective roles and position, the Covenant COULD achieve a hard-fought victory. All-in-all, the idea of the Covenant and Tau fighting is nice.

It's great to see that you can come up with new, interesting ideas through all these years, keep up the good work, and thanks for the quality entertainment.

Careful major Once you start down the path of versus videos forever, will it dominate your destiny

Daaaamn you Gamza, you son of a - .... Wait a second...

Glad to see your post schedule picking back up again, I’ve missed your videos and you’ve covered some really cool and unique content lately, keep up the good work and best of luck getting to 600K.

The Tau have one huge advantage, they are still technologically advancing - the same advantage that Humans in HALO have and Humans in 40K don't.

He hunters can also split apart to eat the suits too cause those materials are what they normally feed upon. So I feel like that would help too

Let’s also remember that most of the technology that the covenant use reverse engineered Forerunner tech

Awesome video idea. Loved every second of it.

Next we need The Flood vs The Galaxy

“Halo would get stormed” The flood: *allow us to introduce ourselves* Edit: for all those in the comments saying “WaRhAmMrR WiNs BeCaUsE iTs WaRhAmMrR” here is why you’re wrong (Full credit to PancrsasNotFound) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bnbxBFsMtZQ.htmlsi=G0cqxUXfHTlSm_WY

Elites joining the Tau would be pretty dope.

Kind of thinking one grunt with a plasma pistol has a good chance to stop a Tau mech lol. Depending on how well that emp charge blast works... could be the decision maker lol.

Amazing hypothetical, and great breakdown! I agree with your conclusion.

I love how you finally threw the tau the bone and accepted that they are not as weak as everyone else says they were unlike other 40k fans It really means a lot to me as a tau fan

A little nitpick, the Tau don't engage in melee, they instead make use of other species to do the melee for them, the Kroot which are good at melee, and can evolve by eating fallen enemies.

Love your vids man ❤

You should make this a series I really like the comparison between settings

The mechanicum/dark mechanicum/Mechanicus military forces would be pretty cool

Now the real question: Can the flood beat the tyrannids, ir even the entire setting???

I love the thought put into this. Thanks

Superb video as always @majorkill. Could you make a video dedicated to the Navigators, the major houses, their politics, relation to the overall Imperium and factions,

I mean Covenant do have the Grunt Goblin which is a big Grunt mech, it’s not that crazy or common but they do have some, idk if one could handle a larger Tau suit though

The Tao are turned to glass in this scenario.

So proud of your use of "orbital"

Video idea: get republic from 25 063 bby (just 10 years affter it's formation (star wars legends)) into the 40k universe and think about how will it work out. at that moment republic is nearly fully located in the galactic core (so you can just replace leagues of voltan with it (as they didn't done anything yet)): - it's population is in houndreds of trylions (thousands of worlds, we don't know the exact population at that moment but we know that corusant with it's 3 trylion population in current setting is not considered overpopulated (and in 25 063 most of the republic's planets were considered overpopulated (that's the reason why the republic left the galactic core and started expanding in the galaxy)) -milions of soldiers (counting only organics) -an unknown number of droids, but we know that it's army was mosty made of them -a gigantic economy (as big as rest of the star wars galaxy combined (and star wars has better economy than 40k (economy not army so please no rage)) -galactic republic has similiar ship designs to tau (i mean by size and how they work, they look compleatly different) and is known from baing capable of making their ships and droids in civilian factories and shipyards (as there was one saying in the lore (one mandalorian cruiser can destroy 3 republic cruisers but republic can make 10 cruisers in an amount of time mandalorians can make 1), also it's droid production is nearly unlimited (in 10 years before the clone wars some corporations in the middle of nowewhere were capable of making 500 quadrilions of them, and the republic has more factories than that corporations and doesn't need to hide) -it's defensive strategies are composed mainly of slowering the enemy in the few first months of any war and then swarming him (houndreds per day is a number of ships nearly impossible to outproduce) -it has jedi (we don't know how powerful were jedi then, but we know that during the clone wars jedi were considered weak in comparison to their pre russan reformation countreparts and the pre russan ones were considered weak compared to the pre new sith wars ones (around 5 more rounds of someone being weak in comparison to someone), and 1 clone wars jedi = 1 000 000 clone troopers (one clone trooper = 200 dorids and 2/3 droids = 1 army trooper (star wars version of guardsmen))) - it's population is unified (it's a utopy (not a utopy, but as close as it can be without being a one)) - it has some op member species (duro - can reverse engeener anything (star wars hyperspace technology was invented by duros reverse engyneering technology of star wars gods, and changing it so it can be used without god technology), and caamasi - greatest diplomats imaginable (they were able to convince a star wars equivilent of orcs to join the republic (i mean the equivilent in diplomatic behaviours not military power), but they are the weakest species imaginable in a military matters (they are so peacful that they don't have an army and they don't know how to fight (that's why thay are always protected by military garrisons), they also all return to their home planet once a year so if the imperium is lucky it can wipe them out in one attack (thay are located in the deeper part of the core so it would need to be a big invasion))) -it is the resource richest part of the galaxy (both in star wars and 40k) - it is compleatly self sufficient all in all it's a faction with great diplomats, ability to reverseengener anything and a ability to mass produce ships. they are still weak in military comparison against any no tau faction in 40k, but as in a case of tau other factions could not care anougth about this faction to actually conquer it, but if imperium, chaos, tyranids, necrons or eldars ever decide to conquer it they can do it but it would be very costly. republic would also start by colonyzing any world they border and engaging in diplomacy with everyone they met. they would be close to tau in naivity (except towards the chaos as they already fougth it and they have a order of wariors being basicly the good version of chaos cultists as their closest allys)

0:28 Wait what?!

Forerunners smack up any 40k faction and pre-cursors do it to an even greater degree. Them's just facts

My only complaint is the lack of talking about the Tau Drones, which is a bit of a game charger and kroot mercs. Both of these forces would be really useful against the Covenant. That being said i think the Brutes would also be a game changer too.

4:20 when it comes to air superiority options the covenant's best option is by far the Vampire from Halo Wars. Basically imagine a needler, turn it into an anti aircraft cannon, and make it fly. They won't be matching mantas one on one but the barrages of massive blamite needles will get work done.

Attempt number 52: What if the Primarchs were found in order of their creation? I got to say, the Covenant would be a good faction to have in 40K. They wouldn't win if they fought all other factions but they would have as good a chance as all others. The biggest win for the Covenant would be their navy, their 'Giga ships' are the CSO class Supercarriers and they're not 10 kilometres but more around 30. Then you have high charity which is around the same size as the Phalanx. And unlike most other factions they know how to keep building them so if they loose one, they can just build another. And for the record: If you get the Flood or the Forerunners from Halo in 40K and they would curve stomp the entire of 40K at once. Oh and the UNSC didn't win the war, they lost hard. They started with 800 worlds and that went all the way down to just Earth. The only reason they survived was because the Covenant entered a civil war that ended up destroying them, the only reason the winning side didn't just wipe out the rest of humanity was because they respected the Master Chief who in the end helped save them from the Flood.

ITS TIME FOR A DEATH BATTTTTLLLLE!!!!

I would love to see some major mini tau auxiliaries!

I personally feel like if the covenant realized they couldn’t win ground battles. They probably just start glassing planets instead of even attempting troop landings wouldn’t be trying to destroy their own world, but the covenant would have no qualms.

...Wait the UNSC didn't technically win the war with the Covenant, it was more they were spared because of the Great Scism which led to the Covenant empire breaking out into a massive civil war with the winners being the human tolerating Sangheili separatists. Also, the humans lost pretty much every space battle with the Covenant. With UNSC fleets only winning if they heavily outnumbered the Covenant ones. Heck in the books and I think even the games it makes it clear that after the Fall of Reach Earth was humanity's last world at the time with it being where humanity planned to make it their last stand. I still like the video, just thought you weren't giving the Covenant enough credit near the end.

Fanfiction is criminally underrated.

I enjoy your videos majorkill there easy to digest compared to others

Majorkill I love you lol I’m typing this before I watch the vid but the fact you’re doing a halo vs warhammer shows you give a shit about you’re content and making it original keep doing what you’re doing much love brother

What's interesting, to me at least, is the near complete lack of mention of the Kroot. Kroot mercenaries make up a not insignificant portion of the Tau's combat capacity. They are also absolutely terrifying. Not only are they massive cannibals (on average, standing between seven and eight feet tall) who are as strong as orks or even Space Marines in power armor, but they can adapt their biology based off whatever species they eat in real-time. The covenant would be an absolute dream for the Kroot to fight, given the great diversity of their warriors. Since Kroot can gain muscle mass just by eating Ork, and can even grow wings by eating flying enemies, there's no telling how incredibly potent they would become after feasting on the most powerful covenant warriors. Considering they inhabit something like ten worlds, and their society is entirely devoted to their warrior culture, there are always plenty of them to go around.

Halo has more realistic population sizes than mass effect, and 40k has more realistic population sizes than that. You could fit 40 billion humans quite comfortably, just in this solar system, with just the space and resources we have available here.

I was always curious how the Imperium would handle the Necromorphs from Dead Space, but then I remember they deal with that stuff like that every Tuesday afternoon.

I think more videos like this could be fun :)

Huge misunderstanding of the Halo side of things. The covenant would show up and just glass every important planet. Those guys don't give a fuck unless there's forerunner artifacts. Also, the crushed humanity in the war. That's just the plot of halo 3, not even deep lore.

Even better: A genetically engineered Taurellian Dog Soldier that's inspired by the Sangheili. Let's fucking gooooo

That sounded like a dope ass major mini model idea

I thought the Tau would win because 40k is usually over the top. The analysis changed my mind though. The Covenant has a massive empire and the technology to get to the Tau, while the Tau don’t have the technology to get to the Covenant worlds. Sounds like the Tau couldn’t get enough ships ready with reverse engineered slipspace engines before the Covenant glasses the hundred planets of the Tau empire bunched up together!

Halo is set 38 000 years before 40k. By the time humanity in halo reaches the year 40k, they will have space Marines as the equivalent to guardsmen.

As soon as the Tau reverse engineer Slipspace Tech, the Galaxy will be doomed.

video idea. tyranids vs flood

Before watching im still betting on tau

the tau are more around a 1000 worlds now I think gw realised how small they were and made them a bit bigger with their new warp drives. Because in their codex it says they have conquered countless worlds and some of their commanders are said to have been in nearly 100 wars so it would be dumb to describe them like that if they only had 100 worlds

Dude this was so much fun. We'll done!

I never thought about this before

Forerunners would stomp 40K.

The tau managed to figure out tactics to make orks decide fighting isnt fun. The tau could absolutely out-tactic the covenent even with starting on fairly similar footing. I like this breakdown. That said: How would each empire's non-war factions? Each faction's politics was brought up for how the conflict starts; but as empires diplomacy is a important question. I don't know what the covenant's diplomacy looks like; but I'm imagining water caste members going to components of the covenant empire and swaying component worlds to their side. The tau earth caste are pretty good with xenotechnology as well - they could reverse engineer everything from space marines short of their indoctrination. Sure; the master chief can use covenant weapons when he loots them off their bodies; but its not long before battlesuits with needlers; power swords; and covenant energy shields are in full production.

Really interesting analysis overall and I think it raises a good point about one of the reasons the tau are still around (besides the fact no one can send enough resources to destroy them and justify the cost). They can and will adapt FAST. Example being when the Imperium started fielding titans, once the Tau got over their shock that the giant metal Hunchbacks of Notre Dame were real, they retooled their Tigersharks (or that was when tidersharks were brought in i cant quite remember) too have twin railguns. One to take out the voidshieed and one to take out the titan. Another comment mentioned it but i would also be very curious too see how the Water Caste would fair. They had alot of success with Imperium worlds i could 100% see them swaying the Grunts and maybe even the Jackals to their side. I geuneinely kinda wish there were a few more actual empires in modern 40k just for a bit more galaxy wide tactical warfare. As it stands, the necros wake up and have a few planets before either doing nothing or being removed, the nids dont keep planets, the orks just sort of happen, the eldar dont have established worlds and the tau are just too small.

also a single hammerhead would be able to one tap a scarab from likely over a mile if they can target the core, its likely to pen from any angle as most of the scarab is actually fleshy insides past the outer armor

Tau: "You're outgunned and outnumbered. Submit to the Greater Good!" Arbiter: "Were it so easy." Shipmaster: "Outnumbered, you say? Then it's a fair fight!"

Day 55 of asking for a dedicated series of videos detailing in depth the Lion El'Heresy

I saw some really cool art last night of an elite drawn with tau style armour.

Ooooh an actually good matchup

Honestly I think the forerunners would wrek 40k humanity.

depends what halo faction tbh, ancient humans and forrunners would shitstomp the imperium

The only thing I'd add thats missed completely is the seemingly legions of Tau drones with a huge multitude of purposes. Scouting, shields, attack. Adds a huge dimension to their combat.

Would like to see more crossovers in the future