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.

As it says.
After reading the Tau codex closely I do believe there is nothing stopping this from happening.
Sorry if it has been covered before.

So the two key elements to this are Farsight's 7 man Bodyguard unit and Shadowsun's Warlord trait.
Because bodyguards are a separate unit on their own their is nothing stopping you attaching Shadowsun and her drones to the unit. Make one Bodyguard a tank and another a support god and this gives you a very lethal, albeit very expensive, highly mobile deathstar.

What's everyone's thought's on this?

you are very late to the party. use the search function for shadowsun or farsight and you'll find plenty of threads on the subject.

I actually like your idea and I think it has some potential. If you make Shadowsun your warlord and give her a blob of stealth suits and marker drones with one homing beacon on the shas'vre you can get the best of both worlds when you outflank her then signal in Farsight's team and wreak havoc. The only problem I see with it is that it costs a lot of points at any given level and in tourney games you might want to save up points for fast attack and heavy slots. Or for even more hilarity: give Farsight a support suit with a positional relay and keep that homing beacon on Shadowsun's team. THAT is a true tag team.

is this a pancake or an extremely beaten dead horse

Mali wrote:
is this a pancake or an extremely beaten dead horse

No it's not either of these things. The Farsight/Shadowsun death star that has been introduced and talked about has not touched upon the subject of this so called "tag team". Most of the lists I see being run consist of a single unit consisting of Farsight's team and Shadowsun. The "tag team" consists of two completely different but very powerful squads that can complement each other in many ways.

... No they've both been talked about...
Usually half way throught the thread..
But it's in about 2 or 3 threads..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The pro argument- very powerful against most armies, when used right..
Against argument- define most armies? Fluff? Cause competitive will kick your ass with 2 Death Stars on the board.. And define used right?
Although I've seen this dual DS personally, and it was used right.. Its still a point sink, and It's too easy to counter by competative armies with redundancies..

Strayan wrote:
... No they've both been talked about...
Usually half way throught the thread..
But it's in about 2 or 3 threads..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The pro argument- very powerful against most armies, when used right..
Against argument- define most armies? Fluff? Cause competitive will kick your ass with 2 Death Stars on the board.. And define used right?
Although I've seen this dual DS personally, and it was used right.. Its still a point sink, and It's too easy to counter by competative armies with redundancies..

Where have they been talked about? And what did they say?

The pro argument: yes it is one of the most powerful builds out there at the moment, I think a bunch of people can agree with me on that. And it can be made stronger.
The con argument: Who defined most armies? Who cares about fluff: make up your own. Competitively: it simply is competitive. It is a points sink true but what would you rather put your points into: a unit that might get a couple kills a game, or a unit that will guarantee you a couple kills a game and then some. Too easy to counter? With what exactly? Cite some example armies and strategies.

As for real experience in this game: yea I used a farsight shadowsun bomb last game I played and (spoiler alert) it destroyed everything it touched.

And no offense to the original poster but this isn't WoW, you don't really need tanks and support units in this game, its different.

Counters:

Almost the entire Eldar codex (primarily the warlock/shadowsseer primaris)

Other tau

Heldrakes

Collossus guns (ESP when paired with a divination psycher)

Mass vector strikes

Slaneesh rush builds

Noise marines


All of these are extremely common in tournament play. Honestly, IMO, the eldar codex alone invalidated this build


Either way, it's been discussed and argued to death

Edit: apologies for typos: on my phone

Question: Does the homing beacon have to be on the table at the start of the turn it's used? Because if so, then you have a major problem - Shadowsun will be dead before Farsight and his team get there. I don't care how good your cover save is, if I know that she is bringing in 7 suits+farsight you had better believe everything in my army is going to try to kill her (and you're probably in rapid-fire/assault range). Sure, I ignored everything else in your army, but your farsight bomb just lost the cover save that make it so survivable. And even if you can use it in the turn you enter play, what if your units come in from reserves at the wrong time or not in sync?

The reason the farsun bomb works is the synergy between shadowsun's cover saves and the the ablative wounds of farsight's bodyguards and their drones. As has been pointed out, there are ways to beat it but it is still a difficult build for some TAC lists to handle. What your suggestion does is split this strong unit into 2 weaker units which are not as good on their own...you're dividing 4 in half and getting 1.5 instead of 2. Sure, people run a pure farsight bomb effectively, but then they don't spend the extra points on shadowsun, they get more firepower.

As a disclaimer, I don't own the Tau codex so there may be something in there that completely negates my points. However, I've played enough lists that rely on reserves to be pretty sure it's not a good idea.

As far as the codex is concerned it doesn't say which order you need to deploy them first: So, you can have Farsight's unit deployed first and then call in Shadowsun's squad or vice versa. I think its ingenious.

The beacon works even if it just came to play.

But the tactic as a whole is seriously old news. heck-its been suggested before the codex even cam out by leaks alone.

On day 1 it was already refined to its maximum potential, with farsight-shadowsun, support suit and even weapon setups.

There is nothing more to say on it, every corner of it covered, and there are whole pages of discussion on farsight or shadowsun as the warlord for the team. adding Liberian for Gate of Infinity (with farsight as warlord-deepstrie without error every turn) attaching eldar jetbike HQs, and whatnot.

The overall conclusion though-won't work very well, its a lethal shooty deathstar, but one rather vulnerable to small arms fire.
Greenwing will be the death of oyu if you fail to kill the banner.
Hordes will give no feths.
Enemy riptides will actually ruin your day, so you don't counter tau.
heldrakes can still mess you up easy.

Its amusing-but wont win you a tournament.

The farsight shadowsun blob has been talked about in great detail yes but I fail to see a problem with that. Wouldn't gaining more knowledge about the potentials of your army be a good thing instead of a bad thing?

Sorry for being Johnny late comer but I did a few different searches but found nothing that covered it adequately enough. So perhaps a thread that discusses it solely might not be bad thing?

This is personally how I would run this tag team:
Have 2 Squads of pathfinders, give them Recon Drones and stick them either side of your deployment.
Put Shadowsun in the middle of table with the 7 man bodyguard unit.

Arm as you please, for most.
Now what I mean by support is have one bodyguard equipped Command and control node, Sensor suite and Neourchip. This will give all the associated goodies.
By tank i mean a suit with Armour, SG and stims. Using his auto-look out sir too good use.
I say this knowing everyone knows this. I just want to clarify what I mean by Support and Tank.

Anyway back to my idea.
Stick Farsight into a unit of 6 stealth suits and you should be able to reliably get to either side.

The points needed to do this is about 1200pts
presuming you're heavily arming your heavily arming the bodyguards, This gives you 300pts to spend on troops and other stuff.

Thoughts?

 Dand218 wrote:
Sorry for being Johnny late comer but I did a few different searches but found nothing that covered it adequately enough. So perhaps a thread that discusses it solely might not be bad thing?

This is personally how I would run this tag team:
Have 2 Squads of pathfinders, give them Recon Drones and stick them either side of your deployment.
Put Shadowsun in the middle of table with the 7 man bodyguard unit.

Arm as you please, for most.
Now what I mean by support is have one bodyguard equipped Command and control node, Sensor suite and Neourchip. This will give all the associated goodies.
By tank i mean a suit with Armour, SG and stims. Using his auto-look out sir too good use.
I say this knowing everyone knows this. I just want to clarify what I mean by Support and Tank.

Anyway back to my idea.
Stick Farsight into a unit of 6 stealth suits and you should be able to reliably get to either side.

The points needed to do this is about 1200pts
presuming you're heavily arming your heavily arming the bodyguards, This gives you 300pts to spend on troops and other stuff.

Thoughts?

Not a problem, in fact I would say you are fashionably late to the party if anything . And yes if you search the forums for this so called "tag team" you will get nothing.

I like your idea of using the pathfinders with recon drones: only problem is that they are really fragile and might die first turn due to large amounts of shooting. What do you mean by the 7 bodyguard squad? Do you mean Shadowsun's 6 man stealth team (plus drones) that she can come with? You literally cannot do what you are thinking of doing. Shadowsun cannot be deployed with Farsight's 7 man bodyguard team. Review the rules and get back to us. Also deploying Shadowsun first thing is a bad idea, she can infiltrate and outflank, review these two rules and you'll see what I'm saying.

Here is where people have been "beating the horse to death" on: arming your Farsight/Shadowsun command squad: browse the forum and get back to us on that. Most people know by know how to use the support suit effectively and what I have learned is that the support suit wants to be the "tank" with iridium armor. You don't need feel no pain or shield generators because T5 and 2+ armor is good enough. I will show you an example in a second.

Like I said before the points won't matter because you will be guarenteed a lot of kills. But you will want to take this unit at minimum 1750 points in my opinion. I am making a list for a tournament and have won my previous game using the Farsight Shadowsun unit.

Here is where the dead horse is being beaten: Farsight and Shadowsun in the same unit at the start of the game.

Here is where we differ: Farsight and Shadowsun in two separate squads, one deep striking and one outflanking, each with the ability to call the other in to the fight.

You gotta love the optimism of these guys..
Alright time for some buzzkill..

You would need a minimum of 1750 just to get some ADEQUATE support units/ troops going.. What's 1750 going to do to shadowsuns half while waiting for Farsight (the far more expensive half)..

And as for define army..
The above post listing hard counters doesn't include all of them.. Those are just the auto includes.. And ALL competative lists have hard counters against both shadowsun and Farsight..

So anyone who says they're undefeated using Farsight bombs.. I would suggest to start playing against real armies and players or play down to the level of the players you've been thrashing..

In short- two Death Stars vs 1750 points of antideathstars.. Hmm

Expect it errated to be illegal anyway. In the farsight book it specifically states the 2 cannot be on the same side. I wouldn't be surprised to see it changed to match in the regular codex as well.

Orock wrote:
Expect it errated to be illegal anyway. In the farsight book it specifically states the 2 cannot be on the same side. I wouldn't be surprised to see it changed to match in the regular codex as well.

That's just for the Farsight Enclave supplement though.

This set up has been beaten to death, and there are plenty of threads out there that talk about it. You need to look harder.

Ultimately, this is a set up i would try if i wanted to do something fun with friends or just try something silly in a local tourny and had all the models already. The only time I've ever been legitimately upset about posters talking about it, is when someone tells people it's the best build ever and advises them to spend money on it.

That, to me, is the biggest sin one can make in a hobby like this.

TheCadreofFi'rios wrote: I like your idea of using the pathfinders with recon drones: only problem is that they are really fragile and might die first turn due to large amounts of shooting.

This is why I'd go for two teams. Still makes them fragile, another option is too swap them for a Stealth team.

TheCadreofFi'rios wrote: What do you mean by the 7 bodyguard squad? Do you mean Shadowsun's 6 man stealth team (plus drones) that she can come with? You literally cannot do what you are thinking of doing. Shadowsun cannot be deployed with Farsight's 7 man bodyguard team. Review the rules and get back to us. Also deploying Shadowsun first thing is a bad idea, she can infiltrate and outflank, review these two rules and you'll see what I'm saying.

I've had a look and I see what you mean, I think an argument that she can be deployed with them is there though not as strong as she can not.
Because Bodyguard's don't have to start deployed with their associated commander, I have in the past put them with other characters I've been looking to protect (Etherals mainly). Is this also wrong? because if it is not then I'd defiantly say that their is no issue putting Shadowsun with the 7 man team, which is deployed with Farsight.

Orock wrote:Expect it errated to be illegal anyway. In the farsight book it specifically states the 2 cannot be on the same side. I wouldn't be surprised to see it changed to match in the regular codex as well.

Unlikely imo, the Farsight in the main codex is pre-defecting. This is why his bodyguard unit in the supplement is different from the main.