Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have heard from multiple sources that a properly done Farsight Bomb that includes Shadowsun is an exceedingly strong build and some have hailed it 'The best build for the current meta'. Do you agree with this? and what does a properly done Farsight Bomb look like at 2000 points?

My friend runs a Farsight Bomb at 1500 points, with 7 bodyguards, 14 drones and farsight and with his warlord trait, you don't have to roll deep strike dice. It is putting all of your eggs in one basket, but it can take so much fire away while he caps the objectives.

Farsight Bomb is a great and vastly powerful RPS build, but it is not invincible. A Psyker Battle Squad and a pinning weapon can effectively neuter it. It is extremely vulnerable to Ld based strategies, a single Warlock with the Primaris greatly reduces its potency as well. There are counters, and Eldar brought another extremely widespread one to the table.

This is more of a "tactics" discussion I think. But no, no list that is at least soft countered by Wave Serpeants (soon to be the most common vehicle in the game) can be considered the best list. That said, it's very powerful

Soft Countered?

Yeah. A hard counter is a nearly unwinnable match. Like triple dragon is a hard counter for foot marines.

Soft counter is an uphill fight but not impossible

Your hard counter would be 3 riptides with IAs and EWOs

It is most definitely not the best army now. I don't think its even the best Tau army out there, Triptide with Kroot support is so much scarier to me. Tau coming close to me, with that much invested into it? Yes please! I would just love to kill half your army turn 2. I just don't think a DSing Crisis unit can do enough damage to enough units to be worth what you will almost certainly lose in the next turn. And if you don't lose it, your opponent is doing it wrong.

 jifel wrote:
It is most definitely not the best army now. I don't think its even the best Tau army out there, Triptide with Kroot support is so much scarier to me. Tau coming close to me, with that much invested into it? Yes please! I would just love to kill half your army turn 2. I just don't think a DSing Crisis unit can do enough damage to enough units to be worth what you will almost certainly lose in the next turn. And if you don't lose it, your opponent is doing it wrong.

When built right, you don't deep strike them, you just start them on the board with a SM Libby to Gate them around without scattering because of Farsight's Warlord Trait. It's pretty hard to wipe out a squad with a 2+ Cover Save that can move 24" every turn to stay just out of charge range. With a ton of shots that get to reroll to hit, ignore cover, and shoot at up to 8 different targets. Plus if you get into CC with it, they'll absorb some losses and then H+R out of combat (with I5) and keep doing what they do.

I'm not saying it's unbeatable or the best army or anything, but I think you're highly underestimating how strong and annoying it can be.

dnptan wrote:Your hard counter would be 3 riptides with IAs and EWOs

Not really... if you deploy in cover when you deep-strike, you will have 2+ cover save from those pieplates. And if you do like i do, that is using a SM Librarian with GoI to deploy from turn 1, you don't even get to Intercept since i don't come from Reserve. Please think about people with a little brain using a list, of course if i deepstrike the unit out of cover between 3 Intercepting Riptides i lose, but in this case i deserve to!

jifel wrote:It is most definitely not the best army now. I don't think its even the best Tau army out there, Triptide with Kroot support is so much scarier to me. Tau coming close to me, with that much invested into it? Yes please! I would just love to kill half your army turn 2. I just don't think a DSing Crisis unit can do enough damage to enough units to be worth what you will almost certainly lose in the next turn. And if you don't lose it, your opponent is doing it wrong.

If i come close to you, you can be damn sure that at least a couple of units will evaporate instantly (more if we count vehicles). After that, you won't be able to assault me (and try to shoot me please, generally i will have a 2+ cover save). Oh, and the best Farsight Bomb lists don't deep-strike, they have a SM Librarian ally with GoI that lets them move 24" each turn (+2D6" in the assault phase...). Good luck catching me if i don't want to. This also means that i am fully effective from turn 1, and don't have to rely on Reserve rolls. The funny thing is that by turn 4 or 5 this list usually tables the enemy... if you are more scared of Triptide, there are only 2 explanation: 1) you use one of the very few lists that is a hard counter to this one, or 2) you have no idea how powerful it can be, and have obviously never seen it in action (used by someone with a little brain, since it's hard to use).

Teschio wrote:

jifel wrote:It is most definitely not the best army now. I don't think its even the best Tau army out there, Triptide with Kroot support is so much scarier to me. Tau coming close to me, with that much invested into it? Yes please! I would just love to kill half your army turn 2. I just don't think a DSing Crisis unit can do enough damage to enough units to be worth what you will almost certainly lose in the next turn. And if you don't lose it, your opponent is doing it wrong.

If i come close to you, you can be damn sure that at least a couple of units will evaporate instantly (more if we count vehicles). After that, you won't be able to assault me (and try to shoot me please, generally i will have a 2+ cover save). Oh, and the best Farsight Bomb lists don't deep-strike, they have a SM Librarian ally with GoI that lets them move 24" each turn (+2D6" in the assault phase...). Good luck catching me if i don't want to. This also means that i am fully effective from turn 1, and don't have to rely on Reserve rolls. The funny thing is that by turn 4 or 5 this list usually tables the enemy... if you are more scared of Triptide, there are only 2 explanation: 1) you use one of the very few lists that is a hard counter to this one, or 2) you have no idea how powerful it can be, and have obviously never seen it in action (used by someone with a little brain, since it's hard to use).

Ok, I play a Tervigon heavy Nid army. And you're right, I've never seen a great player use it. But if you use a Librarian with Gate, thats dependent on Psychic Powers (And shadow in the Warp laughs at you). Then, you can't run away as the Libby won't make a jump move and you must stay near him. Even then, your Tau-star will probably kill a Tervigon, before getting absolutely murdered by the wave of gants that follows. Shoot one unit in overwatch, yippee. There's probably 5 large units charging you at once. I'm really not impressed with it.

Zagman wrote:
There are counters, and Eldar brought another extremely widespread one to the table.

AP2 weapons for EVERYONE!!!

 Eldar Man wrote:

Zagman wrote:
There are counters, and Eldar brought another extremely widespread one to the table.

AP2 weapons for EVERYONE!!!

Warlock says, "Bye Bye Stealth, bye bye Shrouding."
Rest of Eldar army says, "..." Nothing, they just pull the trigger.

 jifel wrote:

Teschio wrote:

jifel wrote:It is most definitely not the best army now. I don't think its even the best Tau army out there, Triptide with Kroot support is so much scarier to me. Tau coming close to me, with that much invested into it? Yes please! I would just love to kill half your army turn 2. I just don't think a DSing Crisis unit can do enough damage to enough units to be worth what you will almost certainly lose in the next turn. And if you don't lose it, your opponent is doing it wrong.

If i come close to you, you can be damn sure that at least a couple of units will evaporate instantly (more if we count vehicles). After that, you won't be able to assault me (and try to shoot me please, generally i will have a 2+ cover save). Oh, and the best Farsight Bomb lists don't deep-strike, they have a SM Librarian ally with GoI that lets them move 24" each turn (+2D6" in the assault phase...). Good luck catching me if i don't want to. This also means that i am fully effective from turn 1, and don't have to rely on Reserve rolls. The funny thing is that by turn 4 or 5 this list usually tables the enemy... if you are more scared of Triptide, there are only 2 explanation: 1) you use one of the very few lists that is a hard counter to this one, or 2) you have no idea how powerful it can be, and have obviously never seen it in action (used by someone with a little brain, since it's hard to use).

Ok, I play a Tervigon heavy Nid army. And you're right, I've never seen a great player use it. But if you use a Librarian with Gate, thats dependent on Psychic Powers (And shadow in the Warp laughs at you). Then, you can't run away as the Libby won't make a jump move and you must stay near him. Even then, your Tau-star will probably kill a Tervigon, before getting absolutely murdered by the wave of gants that follows. Shoot one unit in overwatch, yippee. There's probably 5 large units charging you at once. I'm really not impressed with it.

If you do have anything that can hurt this blob, this list kills it all turn one or easily by turn two. All of it. Anything that could hurt it, gets destroyed. Always.

Mishaps? Warp perils? Please. That never happens. JSJ is always on a 10+.

You can't beat this army Jifel. Don't even try to reason.

AnonAmbientLight wrote:

 jifel wrote:

Teschio wrote:

jifel wrote:It is most definitely not the best army now. I don't think its even the best Tau army out there, Triptide with Kroot support is so much scarier to me. Tau coming close to me, with that much invested into it? Yes please! I would just love to kill half your army turn 2. I just don't think a DSing Crisis unit can do enough damage to enough units to be worth what you will almost certainly lose in the next turn. And if you don't lose it, your opponent is doing it wrong.

If i come close to you, you can be damn sure that at least a couple of units will evaporate instantly (more if we count vehicles). After that, you won't be able to assault me (and try to shoot me please, generally i will have a 2+ cover save). Oh, and the best Farsight Bomb lists don't deep-strike, they have a SM Librarian ally with GoI that lets them move 24" each turn (+2D6" in the assault phase...). Good luck catching me if i don't want to. This also means that i am fully effective from turn 1, and don't have to rely on Reserve rolls. The funny thing is that by turn 4 or 5 this list usually tables the enemy... if you are more scared of Triptide, there are only 2 explanation: 1) you use one of the very few lists that is a hard counter to this one, or 2) you have no idea how powerful it can be, and have obviously never seen it in action (used by someone with a little brain, since it's hard to use).

Ok, I play a Tervigon heavy Nid army. And you're right, I've never seen a great player use it. But if you use a Librarian with Gate, thats dependent on Psychic Powers (And shadow in the Warp laughs at you). Then, you can't run away as the Libby won't make a jump move and you must stay near him. Even then, your Tau-star will probably kill a Tervigon, before getting absolutely murdered by the wave of gants that follows. Shoot one unit in overwatch, yippee. There's probably 5 large units charging you at once. I'm really not impressed with it.

If you do have anything that can hurt this blob, this list kills it all turn one or easily by turn two. All of it. Anything that could hurt it, gets destroyed. Always.

Mishaps? Warp perils? Please. That never happens. JSJ is always on a 10+.

You can't beat this army Jifel. Don't even try to reason.

Oh man. Not sure if trolling, but I really don't recall the last time Farsight bomb won a tournament. Clearly the list can be beaten... This list hinges on being able to kill one, MAYBE two threats when it comes in.

THREE TERVIGONS. You can not, mathematically impossible, kill three Tervigons with a farsight bomb. You're far better off staying far away. And Shadow in the Warp means you have a roughly 50% chance of making that Psychic Check to get away once you come in. Don't say "it never happens" people fail psychic checks. That happens. Please, give me the precise loadout of the Farsight bomb that will kill three Tervigons in one turn.

The last line "You can't beat this army Jifel. Don't even try to reason" makes me honestly think you're trolling. There isn't an unbeatable army, period. Farsight bomb may be a good army. I think it is, I just think Triptide is better.

The use of absolutes like "always"makes me think you haven't played enough good competition. A farsight bomb can drop in and remove a unit. Splitfire means a few Fusion guns can also slag a nearby tank. Thats quite literally all thats going to happen. Against Nids? You'll kill one MC and maybe wound another. I'll have cover though, and if Psychic Powers favored me, you may not even kill one MC. Plus, JSJ doesn't require a roll, not sure where the "on a 10+" comes in. Even then, come in and then jump ~10 inches away, (and boy is it easy to roll lower) then I'll just shoot two Termagant squads 12 + 2d6 inches at you. Go ahead, overwatch. You probably killed a few. But boy, you're NEVER getting out of there, and my MCs are following right behind.

I'm not saying Nids always beat Tau. I think Tau are a bad matchup for Nids. But the way for Tau to beat Nids isn't to DS right in front of them, I can tell you that for sure.

P.S. I can see you're from the south, so if you're ever in the sunshine state shoot me a PM and we'll see if you can test your theory that I "can't beat this army".

For one, removing the auto GoI with the new SM codex getting a psyker deck will change things a bit.

Things ignore cover, templates love mobs gobbled up after a GoI or deepstrike. Not the best list by far. Easy? Yes. Best? No.

TehCheator wrote:

When built right, you don't deep strike them, you just start them on the board with a SM Libby to Gate them around without scattering because of Farsight's Warlord Trait.

This is illegal in some cases. Using the BRB's GoI power, it might work; using the SM GoI, it certainly does not.
Why? Because Farsight's Warlord Trait is about coming in from reserves; using GoI does not make the unit arrive from reserve.

AnonAmbientLight wrote:If you do have anything that can hurt this blob, this list kills it all turn one or easily by turn two. All of it. Anything that could hurt it, gets destroyed. Always.

What?

Farsight suffers badly against MSU spam with good weapons, what with not being able to kill THAT much in a go, even with splitting fire. And a farsight bomb is pointless against horde armies. Yes, congratulations, you killed a few shoota boyz with plasma and melta guns. Now make some armor saves. They also don't straight win against things that put out volume of fire. I'd like to see a farsight bomb beat some salvo 4 bolter 4++ marines with prescience on them.

And it also seriously suffers from, of all things, things which are also deepstrikers. The one time I played against a farsight bomb, farsight and his buddies blew up a chimera, damaged another and then saw Marbo show up right behind him and kill all the suits while the rest of my army chiseled through the shield drones through weight of fire, ending farsight himself with some mechvets. It was like throwing twigs into a wood chipper.

Likewise, a marine drop pod player could leave his sternguard in reserves rather than bringing them on the table and then cackle with glee as his ID Sv-ignoring meltaguns blew it off the table. Or a few squads of obliterators do the same (a few squads, because a farsight bomb is silly expensive).

And yeah, that's before you even get close to considering harder counters like helldrakes and guard artillery and wave serpents/guardians, and the like.

A farsight list is a 1 trick pony. A single trick that's not that difficult to counter, and is only all that good against small squads of elite units. Most stuff can just go 'meh', and then blow it off the table. There's a reason most tau players go with riptide spam rather than farsight. Several reasons, actually...

Tau Codex Pg. 32 wrote:Your Warlord, and any unit he joins, does not scatter when arriving by Deep Strike.

There's no reference there to arriving from reserves, just arriving by Deep Strike. In the SM Codex, GoI says:

SM Codex Pg. 57 wrote:The Librarian, and any unit he is with, are removed from the tabletop and immediately placed back together anywhere within 24" using the deep strike rules.

If they are removed from the table and then placed back, at least to me, it sounds like they are arriving, and using the Deep Strike rules. It's not airtight, but it's certainly not obviously invalid either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:
And it also seriously suffers from, of all things, things which are also deepstrikers. The one time I played against a farsight bomb, farsight and his buddies blew up a chimera, damaged another and then saw Marbo show up right behind him and kill all the suits while the rest of my army chiseled through the shield drones through weight of fire, ending farsight himself with some mechvets. It was like throwing twigs into a wood chipper.

Likewise, a marine drop pod player could leave his sternguard in reserves rather than bringing them on the table and then cackle with glee as his ID Sv-ignoring meltaguns blew it off the table. Or a few squads of obliterators do the same (a few squads, because a farsight bomb is silly expensive).

How exactly does Marbo or Sternguard with Meltaguns blow 20+ models with a 2+ cover save off the table in one go? That's just as ridiculous as the assumption that the Farsight bomb kills everything it looks at.

TehCheator wrote:

Tau Codex Pg. 32 wrote:Your Warlord, and any unit he joins, does not scatter when arriving by Deep Strike.

There's no reference there to arriving from reserves, just arriving by Deep Strike. In the SM Codex, GoI says:

SM Codex Pg. 57 wrote:The Librarian, and any unit he is with, are removed from the tabletop and immediately placed back together anywhere within 24" using the deep strike rules.

If they are removed from the table and then placed back, at least to me, it sounds like they are arriving, and using the Deep Strike rules. It's not airtight, but it's certainly not obviously invalid either.

And compare the SM GoI to the BRB GoI.

BRB p422 wrote:Remove the target unit from the board. It then immediately arrives using the rules for Deep Strike.

I've underlined the pertinent wording in each quote, which shows a significant difference between the SM power and the BRB power.
You're right, it's not "obviously invalid," but in the same way the difference between "gun emplacement" and "emplaced weapon" were unclear when 6th first came out. As soon as you take a look at the language, it becomes clear that, RAW, the two powers are different.

That's a decent point, I'd argue that even though the wording doesn't say 'arrive', you are still being placed from somewhere else, which is 'arriving.' Also, the Deep Strike rules might make reference to 'arriving' so if you are using the deep strike rules then by definition you must be arriving (but I'm not 100% sure about that, I don't have my BRB on me).

In any event, it's a relatively moot point as the SM book looks to be coming out in a month and with it will go the ability to automatically get GoI, which I think severely hampers this list. I still think it might be doable by taking a Farseer and Shadowsun as the Warlord for the 3d6" assault move, but I think the loss of mobility is pretty hard to replace and still be effective.

so a massive unit of 22 drones and suits lands in an ork army. burnas land ~ 10 hits each, say, that's 75 saves to make, from 225pts of orks in a wagon.

me no frightened.

some bloke wrote:
so a massive unit of 22 drones and suits lands in an ork army. burnas land ~ 10 hits each, say, that's 75 saves to make, from 225pts of orks in a wagon.

me no frightened.

You aren't getting ten hits per model. End of. Not only that, but if your burnas even were such a threat, then the bomb is just going to kill them turn one. Not that it needs to.

Blob guard and a heavy dose of Leman Russes would push a Bomb back. a BT deny the witch would have a better chance at stopping them. I think by 150 or so lasguns, like 18 autocannons and 3 lascannons your 2+ isn't going to stop that much and my tanks can wipe the rest of your army. you bomb is like 800 points and my squad and heavy weapons are half that. Same with the bolters in my BT and you wounded me I move forward toward you and in the beginning of the game move towards you cause of the psyker well Libby. I will admit they can throw out a lot of fire power but, the tau player I play use a list of 72 fire warriors and 3 hammerhead and that's a hard fight. (I haven't fought riptides yet)

Any power armored codex has very easy way to counter this..it's called a whirlwind, and my codex does it for 65 points.

 ravengatorfan wrote:
the tau player I play use a list of 72 fire warriors and 3 hammerhead and that's a hard fight. (I haven't fought riptides yet)

So 72 Firewarriors (which kill an average of 40 guardsmen in cover when they're in rapid-fire range) is a hard matchup, but a bomb squad (that kills an average of 31.25 and is MUCH more likely to actually get into range) is easy? Don't forget that blob squads or foot BT can move a maximum of 6+D6" per turn, and that's when they choose not to shoot. The bomb can move 24+2D6" each turn and still shoot just fine, so there's basically no chance of you catching them.

Oh, and they can take the Neuroweb System Jammer so that if one of your blob squads shoots then it's killing more than 10% of its own models to Get's Hot (1/6 * 2/3 = 1/9 = 11.11%), nearly twice that if they rapid fire.

I'm not saying it's unbeatable, or TOTALPWNAGE, or the best list EVAR or anything like that, just that it's surprisingly effective and just dismissing it out of hand like 50 guardsmen is going to roflstomp it without actually trying it is stupid. Especially since everyone here debunking it seems to think that they're just going to drop right in the teeth of your entire army and then not spread out with the assault move for blast / templates. As opposed to picking a flank and destroying it, then jumping away as soon as you react to another part of the board, never letting you bring your entire army to bear on it at once.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jpat1213 wrote:
Any power armored codex has very easy way to counter this..it's called a whirlwind, and my codex does it for 65 points.

So you hit your 6 models (being generous), wound 3-4 times, and do a single wound per turn? They still have armor saves, and the whirlwind is only AP 5 when it ignores cover.

TehCheator wrote:
The bomb can move 24+2D6" each turn and still shoot just fine, so there's basically no chance of you catching them.

Whoa, whoa whoa. Slow down there.

A farsight bomb can move 24" if using a GoI librarian (which will disappear in a month anyway). Then the SUITS in the unit move 2d6, that Libby isn't moving an inch. And you'll be staying in coherency with that guy. As far as assaulting the bomb, easier done than said. You drop in, kill a unit, and will have a couple more jump on it. Unless you plan to drop the bomb far away in the first place, which does defeat the purpose just a bit.

 jifel wrote:

TehCheator wrote:
The bomb can move 24+2D6" each turn and still shoot just fine, so there's basically no chance of you catching them.

Whoa, whoa whoa. Slow down there.

A farsight bomb can move 24" if using a GoI librarian (which will disappear in a month anyway). Then the SUITS in the unit move 2d6, that Libby isn't moving an inch. And you'll be staying in coherency with that guy. As far as assaulting the bomb, easier done than said. You drop in, kill a unit, and will have a couple more jump on it. Unless you plan to drop the bomb far away in the first place, which does defeat the purpose just a bit.

Sure, the Libby can't use the assault move, but since he doesn't really have a gun worth mentioning, you just place him on the far side of the deep strike circle from the opponent and then when the rest of the unit drops back he's not a major hindrance to their mobility.

Especially since you have different range bands in the unit, it's pretty easy to drop the models in such a way that the plasma guns are within 12" of a single unit, while everything else is further back, and the librarian is as much as 18" away from the opponents. That's assuming you even need to bring the plasma guns into rapid-fire range. If you don't, then the front can be 18" away and the back could be as much as 24" away, making them essentially immune to charges. With premeasuring, the unit can pinpoint exactly where it needs to be and then arrive there.

Also, why is everyone assuming that these bombs just drop down right in front of an entire army and pray that they live. It's not a traditional deathstar that you just shove down the throat of your opponent and see what comes out the other side. That said, it does have a lot of redundancy and it's not like the entire 800-1000 points just folds if anything in the world assaults it. First off, with so many shots, overwatch is surprisingly painful. Next, it has it's fair share of attacks and then can leave combat and go about its business. The Libby in the squad means you can't just beat them and Sweeping Advance them, so you have to kill them all, which is hard for even the most powerful unit to do in one go (especially after being weakened by a round of shooting and a round of overwatch). Hell, I was playing a game the other day and I screwed up and placed them in a horrible spot, so they got triple charged by 3 Wraithknights. They took heavy losses, but then they bounced out and continued on their way, eventually killing nearly everything in my opponent's army. They don't just auto-lose if you get into assault with them.

I'm not assuming the bomb is going to drop right in front of an Army to die. I've been using the GOI Farsun bomb a lot lately, because I've been helping a friend design his. It's brutally powerful. However, it does have counters. And in my opinion the Wave Serpent and/or Warlock/Shadowseer are BIG ones, because of how common they are. There are other common counters (with varying degrees of soft or hard). Slaneesh lists, Triple Dragon, 4 Rune Priest lists, the Imperial Guard Colossus (and arty in general, but especially that one)

Those that think they are going to just kill it in assault are very wrong. I can only think of a few units that could either kill or cripple the bomb in one assault. A Slaneesh Army could do it. Either with creativity (taking away initiative, forcing challenges) or with numbers (enough rends will wipe anything). Enough Wraiths, if they somehow survived in time could do it (again, lowering initiative). More importantly, a character beast, like a Mace Prince could do it with precision strikes (take away the chip suit and the Librarian). However, there are ways to mitigate those ideas, which a good Tau general can use. So no, assault usually isn't the answer. (barring specific situations)

I haven't played against massed WS yet, but are they really that effective as a counter to it? The ignores cover helps a lot, but the suits still have a 3+ Save so they don't really cause too many wounds. Oh, though I suppose if you had a decent number of them the pinning part would absolutely crush a SM Libby Farsight Bomb, so yeah, that makes sense.

I've been meaning to try out a list using a Farseer with Shard of Anaris instead of the Libby. You lose out on a large chunk of the mobility (though you get some back with Shadowsun's Warlord Trait), but you gain stronger psychic defense, a chance at Fortune (which would be absolutely ridiculous), and psychic powers to buff up other parts of the list as well (or debuff your opponents). Plus you get Fearless from the Shard. I'm not sure it'll work, but it's something I might try.