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 Mulletdude wrote:

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

@Mulletdude

So I checked out your list and I have some questions. Dont you need to take 2 troops for your allied detachment? Why dont you have EWO on your Bursttide? What are you planning on doing with all of the single suits? Thanks for posting your list, I appreciate it.

Only need 1 troop for the allies. The single suits can either deploy and be AT with the missile pods or deep strike later for scoring. The fusion suits hunt tanks and missile suits just pew things at long range. Don't have EWO on the bursttide because there is no room. The VT and TL take up the 2 hard points it has. The two riptides, buff commander, and farsight all make one ball and rampage around causing havok while the support units actually support it (because markerlights exist). Thanks for asking questions! If you have any more let me know and I'll be happy to answer them.

Yeah I do have one more. Could you please go into more depth about your Buff-Commander. I am a little confused on what he will be doing from turn to turn in the Death Star. So I get the stuff that I already had on the one I played with, but why the Stims Injector, Shield Generator, and the Velocity Tracker. When you equip your Commander with those, does the whole unit get the special rules that the Support systems provide? So I cant count an have another question. Why did you sacrifice a Riptide in the list you would have ran compared to mine. I see that you put more points into your crisis suits, but like it was said, if you can make the bursttide more consistent when you need it to be, why would you not want to have that on 2 bursttides? I appreciate your help alot. It is great to get another helpful player in the community.

Stims Injector - gives him Feel No Pain,
Shield Generator - gives him a 4+ Invuln ,
and the Velocity Tracker give the unit Hit and Run at the highest initiative of 5 (Farsight)

the buff commander sits there and does nothing in the shooting to give the others twin linking, ignores cover, and can convey tank hunter or monster hunter in shooting or if they get too close stubborn.

 thejughead wrote:
Stims Injector - gives him Feel No Pain,
Shield Generator - gives him a 4+ Invuln ,
and the Velocity Tracker give the unit Hit and Run at the highest initiative of 5 (Farsight)

the buff commander sits there and does nothing in the shooting to give the others twin linking, ignores cover, and can convey tank hunter or monster hunter in shooting or if they get too close stubborn.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. When I looked in the codex, I was unsure if the unit got Hit and Run, and if the unit got Feel no Pain. What is the benefit to the unit getting Hit and Run, and just the Commander feel no pain? (i understand the 4+ invuln)

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

 thejughead wrote:
Stims Injector - gives him Feel No Pain,
Shield Generator - gives him a 4+ Invuln ,
and the Velocity Tracker give the unit Hit and Run at the highest initiative of 5 (Farsight)

the buff commander sits there and does nothing in the shooting to give the others twin linking, ignores cover, and can convey tank hunter or monster hunter in shooting or if they get too close stubborn.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. When I looked in the codex, I was unsure if the unit got Hit and Run, and if the unit got Feel no Pain. What is the benefit to the unit getting Hit and Run, and just the Commander feel no pain? (i understand the 4+ invuln)

It means your very expensive (shooty) deathstar can escape combat instead of being tarpitted/locked in combat. 2+/4++ followed by FNP makes the buffmander excellent at tanking any non-Str10 wounds (which you can pass onto the riptides) which makes the deathstar more survivable/last longer.

Can you pin a MC with hallucination?

 CaptainJay wrote:

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

 thejughead wrote:
Stims Injector - gives him Feel No Pain,
Shield Generator - gives him a 4+ Invuln ,
and the Velocity Tracker give the unit Hit and Run at the highest initiative of 5 (Farsight)

the buff commander sits there and does nothing in the shooting to give the others twin linking, ignores cover, and can convey tank hunter or monster hunter in shooting or if they get too close stubborn.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. When I looked in the codex, I was unsure if the unit got Hit and Run, and if the unit got Feel no Pain. What is the benefit to the unit getting Hit and Run, and just the Commander feel no pain? (i understand the 4+ invuln)

It means your very expensive (shooty) deathstar can escape combat instead of being tarpitted/locked in combat. 2+/4++ followed by FNP makes the buffmander excellent at tanking any non-Str10 wounds (which you can pass onto the riptides) which makes the deathstar more survivable/last longer.

Thanks. When you write 2+/4++, what does that mean? Sorry for my ignorance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arbiter wrote:
Can you pin a MC with hallucination?

I believe you can.

2+ Armor save or 4++ Invulnerable save

 thejughead wrote:
2+ Armor save or 4++ Invulnerable save

Got it.

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

 Mulletdude wrote:

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

@Mulletdude

So I checked out your list and I have some questions. Dont you need to take 2 troops for your allied detachment? Why dont you have EWO on your Bursttide? What are you planning on doing with all of the single suits? Thanks for posting your list, I appreciate it.

Only need 1 troop for the allies. The single suits can either deploy and be AT with the missile pods or deep strike later for scoring. The fusion suits hunt tanks and missile suits just pew things at long range. Don't have EWO on the bursttide because there is no room. The VT and TL take up the 2 hard points it has. The two riptides, buff commander, and farsight all make one ball and rampage around causing havok while the support units actually support it (because markerlights exist). Thanks for asking questions! If you have any more let me know and I'll be happy to answer them.

Yeah I do have one more. Could you please go into more depth about your Buff-Commander. I am a little confused on what he will be doing from turn to turn in the Death Star. So I get the stuff that I already had on the one I played with, but why the Stims Injector, Shield Generator, and the Velocity Tracker. When you equip your Commander with those, does the whole unit get the special rules that the Support systems provide? So I cant count an have another question. Why did you sacrifice a Riptide in the list you would have ran compared to mine. I see that you put more points into your crisis suits, but like it was said, if you can make the bursttide more consistent when you need it to be, why would you not want to have that on 2 bursttides? I appreciate your help alot. It is great to get another helpful player in the community.

Well, the commander is equipped with vectored retro trusters, not velocity tracker, which gives him fleet and hit & run. That allows them to run out of combats and shoot for full effectiveness for as long as possible. The stims, shield, and iridium armor make him an absolute beast for tanking wounds. He's better than O'vesa at it (better invul, same armor and FNP). Just LOS the str10 ones and he's an amazing tank. I went down on the riptides because what they can do is greatly diminished by the lack of support you were running. Even with 2 skyrays for markerlights, there aren't enough to reliably get the riptides to either bs5 for the HBC or ignore cover for the IA. Also, more points in the troops allows for more opportunities to play the objective game instead of the 'try to table your opponent' game.

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

Yeah I do have one more. Could you please go into more depth about your Buff-Commander. I am a little confused on what he will be doing from turn to turn in the Death Star. So I get the stuff that I already had on the one I played with, but why the Stims Injector, Shield Generator, and the Velocity Tracker. When you equip your Commander with those, does the whole unit get the special rules that the Support systems provide? So I cant count an have another question. Why did you sacrifice a Riptide in the list you would have ran compared to mine. I see that you put more points into your crisis suits, but like it was said, if you can make the bursttide more consistent when you need it to be, why would you not want to have that on 2 bursttides? I appreciate your help alot. It is great to get another helpful player in the community.

My advice - and take this with a grain of salt because I don't really play Tau - is that only VRT for Hit-&-Run is worth taking (as a matter of fact, it is a necessity, don't leave home without it ). Forget about Stims and forget about 4+ Invuln. They are not necessary. Instead, I'd recommend you use those points to buff up your supporting units.

No, only the Commander gets the 4++ and FNP. Hit-&-Run, however, tests on the highest Initiative in the unit so it doesn't matter who takes it as long as it is there.

 thejughead wrote:
Stims Injector - gives him Feel No Pain,
Shield Generator - gives him a 4+ Invuln ,
and the Velocity Tracker give the unit Hit and Run at the highest initiative of 5 (Farsight)

the buff commander sits there and does nothing in the shooting to give the others twin linking, ignores cover, and can convey tank hunter or monster hunter in shooting or if they get too close stubborn.

BTW, it's Vectored Retro-thrusters (VRT) which gives Hit-&-Run. Velocity Tracker (VT) is skyfire.

 Arbiter wrote:
Can you pin a MC with hallucination?

Yes you can, but only if the MC isn't Fearless. It is the Fearless rule that determines if a unit can be pinned or not.

 jy2 wrote:

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

Yeah I do have one more. Could you please go into more depth about your Buff-Commander. I am a little confused on what he will be doing from turn to turn in the Death Star. So I get the stuff that I already had on the one I played with, but why the Stims Injector, Shield Generator, and the Velocity Tracker. When you equip your Commander with those, does the whole unit get the special rules that the Support systems provide? So I cant count an have another question. Why did you sacrifice a Riptide in the list you would have ran compared to mine. I see that you put more points into your crisis suits, but like it was said, if you can make the bursttide more consistent when you need it to be, why would you not want to have that on 2 bursttides? I appreciate your help alot. It is great to get another helpful player in the community.

My advice - and take this with a grain of salt because I don't really play Tau - is that only VRT for Hit-&-Run is worth taking (as a matter of fact, it is a necessity, don't leave home without it ). Forget about Stims and forget about 4+ Invuln. They are not necessary. Instead, I'd recommend you use those points to buff up your supporting units.

No, only the Commander gets the 4++ and FNP. Hit-&-Run, however, tests on the highest Initiative in the unit so it doesn't matter who takes it as long as it is there.

I think that you are right. The points spent on the Shield generator and the Stimulant injector really eat into the points that I could be spending on another scoring unit. I want to run the 3 riptides if I can, even if that means the Buffmnder isnt totally tricked out. They way that I want to run the star is that where I have O'Vesa, 2 Bursttides, farsight, and the buffmander just tanking up the board and doing as much damage as possible before it goes down. I will then use the skyrays for markerlight support, and for seeker support. I have one DS melta team because it has to be taken in an Enclaves list. The rest of my scoring units are single Crisis Suits with TL MP, and a unit of Kroot from the Tau detachment. I think that I will test things out in terms of the buffmander.

What I was thinking about trying was making a Shadow-Star. It makes Tau the primary detachment and then I take Shadowsun and the Buffmander. I then take 2 units of Kroot for my troop choices, and then I take 2 Bursttides. They have slightly different support system they are taking. One has EWO and VT. The other has EWO and TL. I then have dropped O'Vesa and am just taking Farsight in the Enclaves detachment. I take the 1 Ion Tide which takes the talisman and all of the fun stuff O'Vesa had, except the Earth Caste Pilot Array. I then have my compulsory unit of 3 Crisis Suits as a melta squad. The only thing that I dont like about this list is the lack of scoring units I just have the 2 Kroot units and the 1 Unit of 3 crisis suits.

Let me know if you want to see either of the lists. I would be glad to provide them. I think that the O'Vesa Star is better, but it could be fun to try out an even more powerful one when you are getting Shadowsuns power and then Stealth and most importantly Shrouded. Let me know what you think sounds like it would be most consistent in games, as thats what I'm going for. I lean towards the O'Vesa build because most of the games are objective games so more scoring units is better, but I am open to more thoughts and ideas. Thanks for your help so far!

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

I think that you are right. The points spent on the Shield generator and the Stimulant injector really eat into the points that I could be spending on another scoring unit. I want to run the 3 riptides if I can, even if that means the Buffmnder isnt totally tricked out. They way that I want to run the star is that where I have O'Vesa, 2 Bursttides, farsight, and the buffmander just tanking up the board and doing as much damage as possible before it goes down. I will then use the skyrays for markerlight support, and for seeker support. I have one DS melta team because it has to be taken in an Enclaves list. The rest of my scoring units are single Crisis Suits with TL MP, and a unit of Kroot from the Tau detachment. I think that I will test things out in terms of the buffmander.

What I was thinking about trying was making a Shadow-Star. It makes Tau the primary detachment and then I take Shadowsun and the Buffmander. I then take 2 units of Kroot for my troop choices, and then I take 2 Bursttides. They have slightly different support system they are taking. One has EWO and VT. The other has EWO and TL. I then have dropped O'Vesa and am just taking Farsight in the Enclaves detachment. I take the 1 Ion Tide which takes the talisman and all of the fun stuff O'Vesa had, except the Earth Caste Pilot Array. I then have my compulsory unit of 3 Crisis Suits as a melta squad. The only thing that I dont like about this list is the lack of scoring units I just have the 2 Kroot units and the 1 Unit of 3 crisis suits.

Let me know if you want to see either of the lists. I would be glad to provide them. I think that the O'Vesa Star is better, but it could be fun to try out an even more powerful one when you are getting Shadowsuns power and then Stealth and most importantly Shrouded. Let me know what you think sounds like it would be most consistent in games, as thats what I'm going for. I lean towards the O'Vesa build because most of the games are objective games so more scoring units is better, but I am open to more thoughts and ideas. Thanks for your help so far!

My philosophy is this: don't overdo your deathstar unless they are scoring. And try not to spend more than 50% of your army on your deathstar. The supporting units are just as important and I would give them priority in terms of pointage over lavishing your deathstar with even more upgrades. Wargear such as 4++ and 5+ FNP on your Buffmander is just superfluous. I wouldn't allocate those points to him until I've satisfied all of my other requirements, which would be to fill up the troop slots and more support units. Then if I've got any leftover points after that, I can give him more buffs. What you are currently planning with your Ovesastar (with the addition of the skyrays) is sound.

If you're thinking abour running Shadowsun, then I feel a Farsun-bomb Taudar build is a better. It is a very good deathstar Tau build with Shadowsun, Farsight & his 7 cronies, farseer on jetbike, 3 riptides, 1-2 skyrays, 2x eldar jetbike troops and fill out the rest with Tau troops. This is also a highly mobile build as well. Farseer can go with the bomb or one of the riptides. Give him the Shard of Anaris to make the unit Fearless and he can buff 2 riptides each turn with Guide and Prescience. He will also give the bomb some much needed psychic defense since he is a Lvl 3 psyker. Moreover, psychic defense gets even better with Runes of Warding and if your farseer gets Fortune.

I really appreciate your expert advice. I am just planning on building the O'Vesa Star for starters, but then expanding into Tau so I can run a few different builds. One of the things I am contemplating now is using Sevrin Loth to guarantee GoI and then send him with the Farsight bomb. I can then take either Shadowsun or a Buffmander with that unit too. I think that moving and average of 31" per turn (24" from GoI and and average of 7" from JSJ move) is very powerful to have that kind of mobility. I do lean towards an Eldar ally like you have suggested because they are so fast, and provide the needed scoring units that I feel like I occasionally fall short of when I build my lists. Thanks again for your help. What do you think about allying SM for Sevrin Loth and then taking a Scout Squad with Snipers?

I don't recommend it. The bomb itself is already so darn good. Your true weakness are your troops. Wtih the bomb and then 3 riptides, that's the majority of your army there. It would be very easy to kill your troops if they were static, and that's what any experienced player would do. Eldar is a much better ally because 1) they can buff your riptides and 2) they give you 2 very fast (and cheap) troops. Moreover, farseer + 2 troops is cheaper than Loth + 1 troop. This gives you extra points to bulk up your army as well as 1 additional troop choice.

 jy2 wrote:
I don't recommend it. The bomb itself is already so darn good. Your true weakness are your troops. Wtih the bomb and then 3 riptides, that's the majority of your army there. It would be very easy to kill your troops if they were static, and that's what any experienced player would do. Eldar is a much better ally because 1) they can buff your riptides and 2) they give you 2 very fast (and cheap) troops. Moreover, farseer + 2 troops is cheaper than Loth + 1 troop. This gives you extra points to bulk up your army as well as 1 additional troop choice.

I see what you mean now with the points. I also really don't want to loose my troops. That is what Wim did against your Phantom, go for the troops, not all the glory. Thanks for more of your pro tips!

On more thing. If I use the Farsight Enclaves supplement then I can give one of my Crisis Suits the Talisman. That would mean though that I drop Shadowsun. It would open up space for me to put a Buffmander in though. What do you think? Tau codex with Shadowsun, or Enclaves supplement with the Talisman and a Buffmander?

Shadowsun is ok, but she isn't a necessity by any means. I will consider her for a Farsun-bomb build, but normally, I'd rank the Buffmander over her in 4 out of 5 games. Besides, riptides are durable enough that they actually don't really need the benefits of Stealth + Shroud. That IMO is just overkill.

As for Tau with SS or Enclaves, that really is a personal choice. Which playstyle do you prefer? Personally for me, if I were playing Tau, I'd collect enough models to play either builds. Then again, I like variety. It really doesn't take that many more models to run either builds. Also, personally for me, I'm not into the O'vesa-star build. I'd rather go with Tau Farsun-bomb if I'd had to choose between the two. Like I said, to me it is more of a playstyle preference then whether one build is superior to the other.

 jy2 wrote:
Shadowsun is ok, but she isn't a necessity by any means. I will consider her for a Farsun-bomb build, but normally, I'd rank the Buffmander over her in 4 out of 5 games. Besides, riptides are durable enough that they actually don't really need the benefits of Stealth + Shroud. That IMO is just overkill.

As for Tau with SS or Enclaves, that really is a personal choice. Which playstyle do you prefer? Personally for me, if I were playing Tau, I'd collect enough models to play either builds. Then again, I like variety. It really doesn't take that many more models to run either builds. Also, personally for me, I'm not into the O'vesa-star build. I'd rather go with Tau Farsun-bomb if I'd had to choose between the two. Like I said, to me it is more of a playstyle preference then whether one build is superior to the other.

I am just building a more standard Farsight bomb. I only have 3 troop units, but if my opponent starts going for those, two can play that game, and units should be wiped off the board with a single turn of shooting from the bomb, and riptides with skyray support. I have also acquired enough models to run whatever I want now, but I just need to find time to build and paint them.

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Shadowsun is ok, but she isn't a necessity by any means. I will consider her for a Farsun-bomb build, but normally, I'd rank the Buffmander over her in 4 out of 5 games. Besides, riptides are durable enough that they actually don't really need the benefits of Stealth + Shroud. That IMO is just overkill.

As for Tau with SS or Enclaves, that really is a personal choice. Which playstyle do you prefer? Personally for me, if I were playing Tau, I'd collect enough models to play either builds. Then again, I like variety. It really doesn't take that many more models to run either builds. Also, personally for me, I'm not into the O'vesa-star build. I'd rather go with Tau Farsun-bomb if I'd had to choose between the two. Like I said, to me it is more of a playstyle preference then whether one build is superior to the other.

I am just building a more standard Farsight bomb. I only have 3 troop units, but if my opponent starts going for those, two can play that game, and units should be wiped off the board with a single turn of shooting from the bomb, and riptides with skyray support. I have also acquired enough models to run whatever I want now, but I just need to find time to build and paint them.

Unless, of course, they are in reserves.

Also, you should look into possibly running Eldar allies into your regular Tau army. If I were running Tau, that's what I would do.

Derp on me.... on the VT instead of VRT

 jy2 wrote:

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Shadowsun is ok, but she isn't a necessity by any means. I will consider her for a Farsun-bomb build, but normally, I'd rank the Buffmander over her in 4 out of 5 games. Besides, riptides are durable enough that they actually don't really need the benefits of Stealth + Shroud. That IMO is just overkill.

As for Tau with SS or Enclaves, that really is a personal choice. Which playstyle do you prefer? Personally for me, if I were playing Tau, I'd collect enough models to play either builds. Then again, I like variety. It really doesn't take that many more models to run either builds. Also, personally for me, I'm not into the O'vesa-star build. I'd rather go with Tau Farsun-bomb if I'd had to choose between the two. Like I said, to me it is more of a playstyle preference then whether one build is superior to the other.

I am just building a more standard Farsight bomb. I only have 3 troop units, but if my opponent starts going for those, two can play that game, and units should be wiped off the board with a single turn of shooting from the bomb, and riptides with skyray support. I have also acquired enough models to run whatever I want now, but I just need to find time to build and paint them.

Unless, of course, they are in reserves.

Also, you should look into possibly running Eldar allies into your regular Tau army. If I were running Tau, that's what I would do.

I know that you have mentioned before adding a Farseer to the army, but could you please elaborate on what you would do? And when you say, "if I was playing Tau..." would you be running a Farsight bomb, or an O'Vesa star, or some other variation?

I'd most likely run a Farsun-bomb with Eldar allies. Eldar allies would consist of a farseer on jetbike and 1 or 2 units of 3 windrider jetbikes. Farseer is great for his psychic buffs - namely Guide and Presience on the riptides. He will also take the Shard of Anaris in a Farsun-bomb to make the unit fearless.

In any case, the investment of the Eldar allies is minimal. In its most basic config:

Farseer on a jetbike + 3 jetbike troops = 166-pts.

Running them with in a farsight/farsun build, I'd also give him the Shard = 206-pts total.

Then if I had enough points leftover, I'd get a 2nd unit of jetbike troops.


BTW, this is probably what I would run if I were playing Tau around 2K (from the normal Tau codex, points are approximate):


Farsight
Shadowsun

Farseer - Jetbike, Shard of Anaris

7x Bodyguards - 6 with guns, 1 as a buffing suit, at least 2 Vectored Retro-thrusters and most with Target Locks, also with 10-14 gun drones

Bursttide - EWO, VT
Bursttide - EWO, VT
Iontide - EWO

2-3 units of kroots
2x3 Eldar jetbike troops

1-2x Skyrays


It's a highly mobile army with all the troops starting off in reserves (unless I'm going against FMC-spam daemons). Kroots will normally outflank. Shadowsun will normally be the Warlord, unless you feel that you need to deepstrike the bomb, in which case you can make Farsight the Warlord.

That looks really good. So since you are tanking the bomb up the board instead of DS it (most of the time) and you don't have anyone that can generate GoI, then how would you play the bomb? JSJ from cover to cover, or what? I know it depends on the terrain etc. but I was hoping you would have a general strategy for how to play the unit in general. I appreciate the time you have taken to help me more.

Hey, just an FYI, I have almost finished my own first batrep of my Farsight Bomb that I have decided to run. I appreciate all of the help that was provided on this thread so I could make a good list of my own. Check out the threads I have started, and check out the battle report. Thanks.

Cool. Well, now that you've given Loth a try, you should try out some Eldar allies to see which one you like better.

I will definitely do that! Maybe I could try it against you?

Also, switching the subject a little bit, what would be a very competitive Daemons list that you would run? I am thinking like a large tournament setting where you want your Daemons to devour as many enemies as possible. I think that the LoC, Fateweaver, Be'Lakor, and Helldrake combo is really good. Although Helldrake is an add on, its great at killing infantry and shooting fire farts! I know that 5 FMC spam is also really good, and I'm unsure as to what Soulgrinders really do, their purpose in a Daemons Army. So if I could get a list and some explanation, that would be awesome.

I'm trying not to run FMC-spam or the screamerstar because I want to do things a little differently. Also, I'm not a big fan of Daemon Princes because they are way too fragile for their costs (T5 is a real let-down).

But I do like the Fateweaver-LoC-Be'lakor combo and I think that soulgrinders are actually very good units that are also under-utilized. Unlike other daemons units like screamers, flesh hounds and seekers, they don't need to rely on the Grimoire to survive. AV13 with 5++ and 4 HP's is pretty darn sturdy and they're pretty darn fast if you make them Slaanesh also. Basically, soulgrinders go well with my plan to control the movement of my opponents and they are usually much more sturdy against the majority of firepower that would kill off my hordes. In other words, they are great against Tau and Eldar, who will probably give daemons the most problems.