Battlefleet Gothic: Armada Opening Tau Beta Tomorrow

The Tau are coming to Battlefleet Gothic: Armada [official site], the real-time adaptation of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K spaceship battle boardgame, serving the Greater Good. Those blue fellas will be paid DLC but, in the sharing spirit, from tomorrow they'll be free for Battlefleet players to try in beta for a bit. Maybe you'll like how they think. Maybe you'll want to sign up. Maybe you'll want to launch military campaigns to help everyone else realise the Tau way is best.

Battlefleet Gothic seems to have gone relatively unnoticed but Daniel Starkey called it "one of the best real-time tactical games I’ve played in quite some time" when he told us Wot He Thinks.

Anyway! The Tau, as I understand it, are one of the newer factions in Warhammer 40k, both in the fiction and our painfully real world. They're a bunch of blue folks big into the 'Greater Good', an idea which has brought their people together with grand visions of unifying the whole galaxy by hook or by crook. They've only developed technology relatively recently but already have some nasty big guns and mech-y power armour. Also they might possibly be mind-controlled by their ruling caste but that's FINE don't worry about it, it's all for the Greater Good yeah?

Within Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, the Tau's official marketing blurb says:

"Their fleets excel at long range, with powerful weapons dealing massive amounts of damage from afar. Skilled Tau admirals can eliminate the bulk of an enemy fleet before they can even get within boarding distance."

If that sounds fun, you'll be able to give 'em a go tomorrow. The beta is due to run "until early next week" and you'll need these instructions to get in.

As with the Space Marines faction, people who bought Battlefleet before June 21st will get the Tau DLC. Otherwise, I'd imagine it'll cost probably the same as the Space Marine DLC, which costs £4.99/6,99€/$6.99.