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HQ:

Farsight
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, airbursting fragmentation projector, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired target lock, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, failsafe detonator, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, shield generator, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired target lock, hard-wired black sun filter, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired target lock, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired black sun filter, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
= 948

Elite:

(Crisis Suit)
Shas'ui, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker,
= 62

Troop:

(Firewarriors)
6x Shas'la
Devilfish, disruption pod, multi-tracker
= 155

(Firewarriors)
6x Shas'la
= 60

Fast Attack:

(Pathfinders)
Shas'ui, hard-wired target lock
7x Shas'la
Devilfish, disruption pod, multi-tracker
= 206

HS:

(Broadsides)
Shas'ui, team lead, advanced stabilization system, hard-wired target lock
2x Shas'ui, advanced stabilization system
= 250

Hammerhead, railgun, 2x burst cannons, disruption pod, multi-tracker
= 165

Total: 1846


Let me know what you think of the list. It should be able to handle most competitive builds.
Also, if anyone knows, do targeting arrays take up a hard point? I am trying to take the pathfinders out, since I dont have the models.

I may be reading it wrong, but you don't appear to be using all the hardpoints on your Suits in the Farsight squad (only two each except for the one with the shield generator). Are they supposed to have Targeting Arrays? Flamers? or are the MTs just not hard wired? I've switched to giving them flamers (PR/MP/Flamer) and making two of the drones in the squad Marker drones instead of using TAs. Saves points, and markerlights can be more useful.

Oh, I see the question at the end - yes, targeting arrays take up a hard point.

As I play a similar army right now...my only question is whether you really need 3 broadsides in the team. I like railguns as much as the next guy but that becomes a real big/expensive vulnerable squad.

Not sure why the devilfish needs a Multitracker. I guess it's 10 points to be able to move 12 and shoot instead of 6. Maybe worth it.

At 1850 i've been going back and forth on trying to cram in another troops choice. Similar to your list but with one more squad of 6 FW and a Devilfish. One less Broadside, no MTs on the devilfish, and I think a slightly less expensive farsight squad. But...I don't know if I really need it, Devilfish are so damn expensive. And the extra KPs are a killer. At 2000 I definitely take a third troops, but 1850 it may be too much to ask.

I'm not entirely sold on all Fusion (as opposed to say half fusion/half MP) on the farsight squad. MPs are the same as fusion against terminators. I'm leaning towards all fusion because of Nob Bikers. Oh bloodcrushers, how dare you be T5!

You may want to give the suit with the shield generator the Stimm Injector too. It's not very expensive and makes him even more annoying. It's more fun to put the Stimm injector on another HQ and join him to the farsight squad...but right now I can't find the points for it at 1850 with the need for Devilfish in 5e

This is a great Necron killing army. General competitiveness, you're going to run into trouble against hordes. You *do* have the ability to deepstrike the bulk of your army though. The pathfinder fish lets you reroll your deep strike scatter.

I don't understand why you have 2x shas'ui on your broadsides? You can only have one Shas'ui per squad.

Shas'ui is the lesser rank. Shas,vre is the leader. (I think)

You have it right, all three are Shas'ui (FWs: Shas'la, FW leaders/Suits: Shas'ui, Suit leaders/Bodyguards:Shas'vre, Shas'el, Shas'o)

Question: have you played any games with this army sephiroth?

Cant say that I have. I have obtained this army from a guy that I know who needed to sell it. I have always liked Farsight and thought that it would be a strong list.

yeah, it is a decent list, and you have put together a strong version of it. I'd say at this point all you can do is test it/play it and decide for yourself if you need more troops or more other firepower.

if you don't want pathfinders you definitely should definitely still buy a second devilfish. And then maybe a second crisis suit to give your monat a friend, or maybe some more fire warriors.

A positional relay on the crisis team can be nice too. Since you can keep everything in reserve now, you can do things like leave most of your firewarriors and farsight in reserve, and bring them in slowly. This also makes it possible to have an unmounted 6 man firewarrior squad and keep it alive...just use the positional relay to bring in other things until turn 5, then walk them on near some objective near your board edge. But positional relay tricks are well known and not necessarily the way to go, just an idea.

I had not thought of the positional relay tricks. That is pretty cool. The list has strong match ups against most tourney lists. (Except against 24 bloodcrushers, which I also play.)

That seems awfully expensive for a squad that could conceivably be crippled in a single round of shoouting or if hit by even a moderately powefull cc unit, of course I am not completely familiar with farsight and his abilities either.

Hard to cripple farsight with shooting. The squad has:

32 T4 wounds
3+ armor
4+ invulnerable

The ability to spread wounds around to avoid casualties until you've taken 8+ wounds from small arms. Anything str8/AP3 or better goes on a drone which gets a 4+ save. You can take about 22-24 wounds before losing any firepower from the squad if you do it right/get a little lucky.

Close combat...well, it has issues. It has a power weapon, and puts out 4 Str5 PW attacks and 14 other Str5 attacks...but it is not a strong CC unit and tends to lose to anything that is at all good in CC unless it gets the charge. It's trick is that when they lose combat the first time, they don't get swept. Instead one of the suits explodes and leaves a STR8 blast template behind. The rest break 3d6 and can regroup even below half.

This doesn't make it great....just not suicide to use. You only get to use the failsafe detonator once.

Gardeth, it can't really. They automatically rally due to Bonding Knife, so that is out. They each have two wounds and if they are unique (which it looks it), they are each a seperate wound group. With Shield Drones, it gets even better.

Here is what I run for Seven Samurai:

Commander Farsight
[Bodyguard]
- TL Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, HW Multi-Tracker, HW Drone Controller, HW Target Lock, 2x Shield Drone
- TL Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, HW Multi-Tracker, HW Drone Controller, HW Target Lock, 1x Shield Drone
- TL Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, HW Multi-Tracker, HW Drone Controller, HW Target Lock, 1x Shield Drone, 1x Gun Drone
- TL Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, HW Multi-Tracker, HW Drone Controller, HW Target Lock, 2x Gun Drone
- TL Missile Pod, Fusion Blaster, HW Multi-Tracker, HW Drone Controller, HW Target Lock, 2x Shield Drone
- TL Missile Pod, Fusion Blaster, HW Multi-Tracker, HW Drone Controller, HW Target Lock, 1x Shield Drone, 1x Gun Drone
- TL Missile Pod, Fusion Blaster, HW Multi-Tracker, HW Drone Controller, HW Target Lock, 1x Shield Drone

Though that is old, really. I am thinking TA would be handy to up the BS over TL options, but really it is all about making them unique wound groups and using the Shield Drones to take the insta-kills. Otherwise, they are pretty hard.

Here is the list, with some changes:

HQ:

Farsight
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, airbursting fragmentation projector, hard-wired multi-tracker, targeting array, hard-wired target lock, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, cyclic ion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, targeting array, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, targeting array, failsafe detonator, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drone
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, targeting array, hard-wired target lock, hard-wired black sun filter, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, targeting array, hard-wired target lock, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, targeting array, hard-wired black sun filter, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
Shas'vre, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, targeting array, hard-wired drone controller, 2x shield drones
= 1001

Elite:

(Crisis Suit)
Shas'ui, team lead, plasma rifle, fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired drone controller, 2x sheild drones
= 97

Troop:

(Firewarriors)
6x Shas'la
Devilfish, disruption pod
= 145

(Firewarriors)
6x Shas'la
Devilfish, disruption pod
= 145

HS:

(Broadsides)
Shas'ui, team lead, advanced stabilization system, hard-wired target lock, hard-wired drone controller, 2x sheild drones
2x Shas'ui, advanced stabilization system
= 280

Hammerhead, railgun, 2x burst cannons, disruption pod, multi-tracker
= 165

Total: 1833


New question, does the failsafe detonator take up a hard point? Also, does the posintional relay take up a hard point?
Please, let me know.

I would like to see perhaps some more diversity among Farsight's unit. Missile Pods are still very good, and the ranged threat is quite useful for knocking tansports that can run from Farsight's unit. With only 3 targets able to be covered from your Railguns, you could do with some extra light vehicle firepower from range.

Also with Farsight's unit being monsterous, it won't die. What it cannot do however, is score. You literally have 12 Firewarriors in your army and those are your only scoring models. That is laughable at best to anyone playing against you in an objective mission. Sure they're in devilfishes, but a mobile opponent can probably afford to skip Farsight or a couple of turns and focus on Fishes and the Hammerhead. Once that is done, your mobility is gone (JSJ/assault move is NOT as fast as a tank, and never will be) and you can't win by objectives. I'd try really hard to find points for a third FW team in fish, otherwise it is simply too troops light. Basically yes, the Fishes are hard to crack since they always have thier 4+ cover, but when it comes to it they are also only AV12 tanks and opposing AT weapons can make it through the disruption pods if a few are shot at it (9 str8 weapons at BS4 kill a fish, about 6 str9 weapons to kill a fish).

I like it, but you need a third troops unit. You'll also run into big trouble against horde armies since you simply don't have much of anything that is very frightening to them (2 big templates is scary, but won't win that game).

Has anyone done the math for Nob Bikes unit vs Farsight unit? I'm assuming Nob Bikes win that combat but I'm not sure as I haven't looked at the numbers at all.

The Positional Relay takes up a hard point

The Failsafe detonator does not take up a hard point.

Farsight gets absolutely reamed if charged by a full squad of Nob Bikers in CC. Farsight does ok if he gets to unload every gun on them and charge them, assuming either they haven't turboboosted or he has the markerlight support to deal with that). If he doesn't get to shoot he shouldn't charge but can still get lucky if he personally can avoid dying to PKs (tough with the new counterattack rules)

Farsight vs. Nobs. BS4 - 5+ inv save

16 plasma shots, 32/3 hits, 7.1 wounds to assign

7 plasma shots, 14/3 hits, 3.9 wounds to assign

At 10 or 11 wounds. Assuming the Warboss is with them, he gets a fusion hit, so we have maybe 2 dead Nobs, and 4 or 5 nobs with one wound.

Assault. Farsight is I5, Drones I4, Suits/Nobs I3 or I1. So the squad should get all of its attacks.

5 Farsight attacks, 4.5 hits, 2.2 wounds with no FNP

28 drone attacks, 14 hits, 2.3 wounds (no re-roll, not Tau)

21 suit attacks, 15.75 hits, 7.875 wounds. Farsight wounds get assigned to 2 unwounded nobs, 11 other wounds get spread around, end up with, end up with 5 or 6 total unsaved wounds, maybe 2 more dead Nobz (down to 6)

Nobz attacks...Hard to say depending on how they're armed. Assuming 2 PKs, warboss with PK, and rest choppas.

6 Nobz (2 died in shooting) 24 attacks, 16 hits, 8 wounds. 2.6 unsaved.

2 PK Nobz. They will go after farsight if he was able to fight the squad. 6 attacks, 3 hits, 2.5 wounds, 1.25 unsaved is enough to send Farsight packing.

Warbosss: 4 attacks...2.2 wounds, kills 1.1 drones.

Since farsight is 4 wounds, the Suits lose...7.6 to 5 or 6. Which is testing somewhere between 5-7 for the suits.

As usual for Farsight and a lot of special characters, his survival is based mostly on powerfists in the opposing squad getting to him. If he lives through that, farsight wins.

Is Farsight's group not a retinue? I thought as it's his bodyguard unit it counted and that he was no longer an independent character under those sercumstances.

Hmm, it appears you are right (change from 4e to 5e I think) and this helps farsight immensely. I'm so happy I could kiss you.

Yeah, he's not an IC if you give him a retinue. That's why bodyguard suits cost 10 points more than regular suits - don't forget to add those points in there.

And I'm personally a huge fan of giving those suits lots and lots of shield drones.

in 4e having a retinue did not remove your IC status. Bodyguard suits cost 10 points more because they have better stats (WS3, access to the armory).

This is just one of those many 4e to 5e changes where the difference isn't something immediately noticeable (it's just a small paragraph at the bottom of the IC rules). Lots of minor changes in the game are taking forever for me to internalize since they don't come up very often, and I know the 4e rules a little too well...

Anyway, this is good news.

Actually, the fun part is that Farsight and regular O's and El's were still not independant characters in 4th edition. This is simply due to the fact that the Tau codex says that if they did not take bodygaurd then they are independant characters. (Paraphrasing) Yeah its fun times for Farsight.

Also, what do you all think is more important, the hammerhead or the third troop squad? They are almost the same points so I was thinking that they could be switched easily.
Let me know what you guys think.

I think the hammerhead is more important. It provides some anti-horde and another credible anti-armor option at range. The most objectives you're going to see is...5? So you control two contest one with farsight and try to contest the others. Seems doable.

And yes, I am dumb, farsight seems to have always been PF proof based on his codex entry.

I second using Shield Drones. Handy for taking those insta-kill wounds. My set-up maximizes wound allocation potential by using Drones to create unique wound-groups. Very nasty.

em_en_oh_pee :

Can you clarify what you're doing? Is the idea that since the Drones are wargear each individual suit+drones forms a mini-unit inside the unit, and you can do things like:

Take four wounds on the squad
Assign two to one shield drone, one to a gun drone, and one to the crisis suit that controls them

This would be opposed to say, considering all of the shield drones to be the same for wound allocation, regardless of who's wargear they are (So you couldn't assign two wounds to one shield drone, and two failures = two dead drones)

Not saying this is wrong, just that i had never thought of it this way and I wanted clarification.

Hmm. That is crafty. I actually just use them as Wargear, but as far as wounds go, I treat them as seperate units. Of course, I think yours may well be the better way to go, right? Which one is more technically legal?

I have no idea. Normally people consider drones just as all the same for wound allocation, but expect you to keep track of who owns which one anyway. So you'd take 6 wounds against shield drones in general, fail 3, and remove three shield drones. As in, they're not different.

There is a thread on this right now here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/229466.page

I have no idea what the correct answer is to tell you the truth. Makes me feel dirty even trying it though.

Well, I never feel dirty working within the rules. If it makes Tau stronger, well, they needed the boost anyhow, I think. So, this makes Farsight / 7 Samurai lists as powerful as they should be for the point investment (and money investment too!).

The answer to shield drones is in the Tau Codex:

Drones take on the characteristics of their owner. Not of the owning unit, but of the owner. In terms of wound allocation, each "group" of different models gets put together for wound allocation. If you have two drones on one suit, then they are a separate "group", but all drones of the same type in a unit of suits that are equipped differently are not the same.

That doesn't help. The only characteristic they take from their owner is "unit type". All the owners are the same unit type, all the drones are the same unit type, this does nothing to differentiate them. This doesn't overcome the definition of "Identical in gaming terms" in the codex - unit type: as owner is the same for all of them, they all have the same special rule. No differentiation.

Anyway, this needs to be in the other thread, no reason to debate this in two places.

Not that I think it's going to be solved...I could go either way with it (what, exactly, is a "special rule?").

Just wanted to point out that from everything I know and have heard (the Tau FAQ..), Farsight lists still need another Commander in them.

So none of the above lists would technically be legal without another suit.

The good nes is that bodyguard suits are so expensive you can bump on up to a Shas'El for not too much extra. Maybe lose a drone...

As far as the drones go...I also have No idea... =/ haha I don't feel like anyone will be able to say very definitively

In the 5th ed TAU FAQ GW decided that Farsight will count for the commander choice. Download it off the GW site if you don't belived me.

against an ork hoard your army is screwed. i can see it doing very good against meqs. i would recommend making farsights squad smaller because if they are locked in cc they miss out shooting with those wonderful guns. and unless you are going for annilation you should have more troops.