Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-203.134.114.240-20130719051426/@comment-75.166.170.221-20140622052934

It's likely that the Covenant is too obssessed with the "great journey" and the words of their prophets, it would certainly be a war between the Tau and the Covenant, after of course the Tau tries to get the Covenant to join the Greater Good.

Now besides technological matters, in which the Tau and Covenant have both superiorities and inferorities in, I'll compare the enemies each race fought.

First of all the Covenant was pretty much bested by Spartans alone, the Adeptus Astartes are likely superior to Spartans in experience, training and in number. (I seriously doubt master chief would stand a single chance against one of the Primarchs, however the Tau weren't a race during the time of the legions, Primarchs and the Great Crusade so I'll leave that part out of this) The Tau constantly has to fend off Eldar, Imperial forces, Tyranids, Orks and on occasion the Forces of Chaos. All of these enemies pretty much dwarf whatever the Covenant has faced except for the flood.

And as far as adpability to wartime situations go, the Tau were able to quickly adapt to a race which they have never even heard of before, the Tyrands. And if the Tau can adapt quickly to the Tyranids, they would be able to read the Covenant like a book. The Kroot evolve by eating genetic samples of other races, as soon as Elites and Brutes started taking casualties, the Kroot would be quick to feast, and would soon begin to rival the Elites and brutes to the point to where there was basically no inequalities, except for that the Elites and Brutes have better technology, while the Kroot have higher numbers, and in that case, Tau commanders could order the Kroot to adapt to Elite and Brute technology. Which would be catastrophy for the Covenant.

And at that, the Elites have already seperated from the rest of the Covenant after the great schism. Elites and other Covenant sepratists would embrace the Greater Good and show the Tau a good portion of their technology. At that point the Covenant is screwed completely.

Oh and as a side note, Etherials know how to fight with honor-blades and perhaps some know how to work Tau pulse rifles. The prophets are mere weaklings who have never held a weapon in their lives ;)