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The farsight bomb. Never seen it played, but could it have potential? Anything it looks at should die minus certain things. I know deathstar armies usually aren’t very balanced but I think this one has some potential, more than nob bikers or even a seer council.

I’ve got my fully kitted out farsight bomb with 3 fireknife suits with TAs and HWMT, 3 firestorms with the same and an AFP hiding in the mix. I added in 5 hard wired drone controllers for 4 shield drones and 6 gun drones bringing the model count up to 18 but requiring up to 20 wounds before a single suit is removed. There’s also a failsafe detonator because while better in CC than anything the tau can bring I’m not under any illusions that it’s a truly strong CC unit. Grand total cost is 858 points so almost half of just about any army up to 2000 points for a fully kitted out farsight bomb.

I bring up this idea to be discussed because the current composition scores at my local gaming score more or less encourage these type of deathstar lists (last tournie at 1250 points had all the top players with some type of deathstar unit). As a Tau player I’ve been wracking my brain on how to come up with the composition scores (as they’re added in with battle scores) to help place high for best general. The scores the last tournament were only a few points apart so I figured this would be the way to maximize my chances while still possibly brining a competitive army.

The general strategy I’ve come up with (from a theoretical standpoint) is if I get charged by another unit that is strong enough in CC that I have to resort to shooting in order to kill it, I want to lose that first combat. I’ll take wounds on things that have a poorer save and let my failsafe detonator strand them in the open so I can rip them a new one in my shooting phase. Otherwise I’ll use target locks to allow me to focus the vast majority of my firepower from the farsight bomb on one unit while allowing me to charge another.

So what are your experiences with farsight? Have you played against it and how effective was it? Were there things they could have done better in your opinion? What best compliments the farsight bomb? Other than being a huge honking (and probably over priced) unit what other weaknesses are there?

I've played against this a few times, it was very successful at first. Farsight and his squad would just eat my bezerkers, I had to hit them with 3 squads to make them fall down, in the meantime they weren't able to hit other targets. Farsights powerweapon and I5 just cut them apart and the shield drones just ate any hits I got.

Of course a Chaos Bezerker army is not a normal force and I never hit them with my guard.

I've played against a Farsight bomb and as an Ork player it hurt. I did wipe it out but it came at the cost of my Nobz and Warboss. Overall I thought it would probably have been more tactical to just have those 7 or so suits be broken up into smaller squads but...

In the end he fell very quickly after the farsight bomb was defused. Thats why they're called deathstar units. Can hurt like hell, but if you get the odd torpedo into the little vent the army is more often than not crippled.

A complete farsight bomb just seems like it's still too vulnerable to assault. Adding a failsafe detonator so they don't die after the first assault that they inevitably lose is nice, but I think I like farsight better as a small unit for counter assault and finishing off enemy units in melee.

MrDrumMachine wrote:Grand total cost is 858 points so almost half of just about any army up to 2000 points for a fully kitted out farsight bomb.

Would you like some army with that Farsight bomb?

That's an insane pricetag, and it's going to chew up points that you would otherwise spend on anything that's not your required firewarriors and other troops. The reason I would advise against putting all your eggs in one basket is, while the basket may be big and scary, its easier to hit than lots of little baskets. What that means is, although it's essentially its the same cost as having separate crisis units, all of those crisis suits are now clumped into one large, hittable unit. If they concentrate all of their fire on that one unit, it will kill it, and then you won't have much left. If you give Farsight a small bodyguard of, say, two, and then have several other separate units of crisis teams, your opponent will have to split fire. Frequently, when crisis suits are killed it is by a large volume of fire/attacks in CC. This means there will be excess wounds after the unit dies. By using a Farsight bomb, you are essentially allowing your opponent to assign those extra wounds to other units of crisis suits they could not normally hit. By putting your crisis suits into smaller units, you make your army harder to kill, not to mention more versatile and easier to maneuver.

I would just like to note to everyone (and thank you for your responses so far) this is NOT a list type that I would normally run. However, because of the composition score being added into battle points I need to find a way to maximize it while still fitting in all those lovely crisis suits. One of the scores is troop ratio and if I manage 3:1 troops I get full points. This is why I've lumped all my eggs into one basket, because anybody else with a really competitive army will have probably done the same (most like the seer council armies that occupied the top slots last tournie).

The top slots will probably be determined by about 3-5 points so if I can start at 33/35 rather than 24/35 (as I would if I took one of my normally balanced lists) then I am more or less forced to play this as competitively as possible.

Weaken resolve, kill some drones/suits, then rinse and repeat till they flee off the board. Non fearless deathstars kinda have that vulernability of just getting dropped with minimal real investment.

I'm convinced that people who play farsight bomb and go "wow, that rocks!" don't realize that the things that it is good at are by merit of being a buttload of battlesuits, not for being a specific way of fielding those battlesuits.

You put 8 crisis suits down, they do some damage. They're going to be more effective if you're using the elite suits instead though, which is why a basic tau army with lots of crisis teams is better than a farsight list.

I hope that makes as much sense in text as it did in my head

It mainly did... But has anyone had success against other static gun lines like IG or really fast opponent like mechdar or a council? I'd be interested to see how those different armies fare against such an expensive, possibly nasty thing.

I play Tau and didn't win a game until I stopped using farsight. You will get more use out of just a crisis suit commander and body gaurd and other CS teams. This also frees up points to go towards a decent broadside team. A 3 man team with 4 shield drones is pretty tough to take down and costs drastically less than a Farsight bomb.

The farsight bomb is a gimick, but it's a fun gimick to pull out from time to time. Course I think if you're going to go farsight bomb, go all the way, helios suits w/ TA all around, HWMT and HWDC, 14 shield drones, and a failsafe detonater. Expensive as all getout, but 16 str 6 AP 2 shots and 7 Str 8 AP 1 shots, 32 wounds, and 15 4++ saves.

When it dies, you're done, but it is a very fun unit if you play against someone who regularly runs their own deathstar unit.

They are a little more effective just 8 crisis suits, they're all 'vre, so the have war gear access, and they gain more efficient use of markerlights. But not worth the price tag for most circumstances

The only army I have real trouble against is a twin lash with plague marines. In objective games they are a real problem which I have not resolved. SW are a problem but are beatable. I have not lost to an IG army. This is odd because such armies have won tournaments that I have played in, so clearly they were not that bad. The games can be very close and are always a challenge.

I am thinking of trying Farsight because of my poor record against the twin lash with plague marines. I want to use him to drive them off of objective. The issue will be how to use him, as I do not like to use DS. He is clearly a useful cc unit but if he gets himself and his formation tied down, then that is clearly a bad deal as you need the suits firepower. The other issue is points cost. I run a single 'El at the moment with drones and to put in Farsight means I will have to give something else up and there is only room to do that at the 2000 point level. I will see what happens.

When I played againt them with chaos, I just lashed them. They failed one of the pinning checks, got 6 oblit plasma cannons dropped on them. Next turn I lashed them again to reclump, dropped 6 more plasma cannons, and the unit was gone after a cleanup assault.

Not counting twin lash, Nob bikers will do a number, thanks to the tau not being able to cause any real damage back in close combat. Spacewolves can kill quite a bit in assault, THSS sm termies the same, IG as stated can make them LD2 and cause either a single pinning wound, or 25% casualties from drones and the like. Against 'nids you might be ok, but if you get hit with a paroxyn and/or supergant unit your deathstar is now done.

Oh, and bloodcrushers are, of course, gonna kill everything they touch in close combat.

I had reasonable success in the GT with Farsight in 4th edition.

5th edition killed the Farsight Council for three reasons:

i) TLOS means you will be shot up straight away
ii) Counter-charge means you cannot dictate combat
iii) Scoring changes means you need to take firewarriors.

The third was manageable, but not the first two.