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I'm wanting to try a Farsight Breakaway army for a change. But I'm not sure the best way to proceed in my army setup. I have every unit in the Tau army except for the Pirhana's. For suits I only have 6 and a spare one to use as Farsight.

Has anyone had good success with Farsight?
Could anyone give me a rough list of what you would normally field when you do a farsight army around 2000pts?
(obviously I'm not expecting anyone to do a full 100% list, just a rough guide of what you field to get me going with my own list so I know if I need to buy more suits)

Cheers all

Due to the list limitations I find Farsight's effectiveness declines as the points total increases.

A rough farsight list:
Rail 'head with multitracker and decoy launchers at minimum
2 broadsides with ASS and 2 shield drones

a unit of death rains for skimmer spam
a unit of stealths for hordes
a unit of helios for heavy infantry or vehicles

an 'el with CIB and plasma for heavy infantry
farsight with 3-5 fire knife suits equipped with target array, HW multi-trackers, and a pair of shield drones for heavy infantry

a unit of pathfinders for markerlights
possibly a unit of drones for suit escort or grabbing objectives

some mounted fire warriors in a warfish for resilience

Some players prefer a minimal complement of warriors in order to maximize suits. I find I need the warriors for grabbing objectives and withstanding firepower. Lots of suits are relatively easy targets to break and while I've doen the 7 suit Farsight council, a poor LD roll can have 25% of your army running of the board. Some players will also add a piranha for rapid redeployment.

A friend of mine wrote up a farsite list at 1850 that had 20 crisis suits in it IIRC
3 full elite units, a second HQ with retinue and the big farsite squad plus some fire warriors.

thats a helpful start, thanks.

Would you have a recommendation for Crisis suit setup?

When I've played a vanilla Tau army I always run 2 teams of 3xcrisis suit,
1xmis-pod, burst, multi.
1xmis-pod, fusion, multi.
1xmis-pod, plasma, multi, team leader, bonded and 2xshield drones
for 206pts

Two of these teams work fantastically in any army setup I've played but imagine that a farsight army may need a different setup due to the limited numbers of models and number of suits needed.

Any thoughts?

Farsight horde with max suits and shield drones is frigging amazing at 1850.

I dunno if it's the best way to do it, but I've a friend who has run farsight + 7 bodyguards, all with 2 shield drones. It's a ridiculously hard unit to land any actual damage on, and it combines enough mobility and firepower to avoid assault when played well. It's hard to get assault guys close enough to it without them being blasted off the board with combined plasma and missile fire.

I've played farsight in a lot of different configurations, mostly starting with a base of farsight + 6 bodyguards + 12 shield drones, and I've had good success with it (outside of my abysmal showing at the LA GT...but I digress)

Since the unit is so expensive I don't really like spending any points on anything that isn't a scoring unit - you just end up with so few that points spent on drones or devilfish may be better spent elsewhere.

I don't think you want 3 man squads of crisis with farsight - they're too many points and farsight duplicates a lot of what they do already. Two two man teams should be more than enough, in whatever configuration you want. Or, a monat Helios or something similar may be in order if you're worried about heavy armor in your metagame - the railhead and two broadsides aren't always enough.

I only own 11 crisis suits and farsight and don't think I have too few. I would love to try it with 20 though

Some people suggest playing with a Shas'o commander with stimulant injectors and maybe a shield generator attached to the farsight squad, so they can assign out some FNP wounds to make the farsight squad even more resiliant. Rules-wise though I'm not sure that is actually legal, I'd think you'd have to remove every shield drone before you could start doing that. I guess the multiple-wounds models rules aren't specific enough for me to be sure, I'm sure there is a FAQ somewhere. It says you need to remove whole multiple-wound models where possible (no spreading around wounds) but I guess it doens't say you have to remove whole models *period*, so you could assign a wound to a crisis suit instead of a shield drone, just so long as you kept assigning the wounds to him and didn't spread them around. Ah, games workshop, you're so clear!

Markerlights are great obviously with farsight, so a large council can make a skyray worth taking, and it can be nice to have a second tank, but I have had more success either putting markerlights in two small 6-man firewarrior squads or using sniper drones. Pathfinders work well too but in my experience they just get pounded off the board by anyone who knows what they are, some kind of irrational fear of massed markerlights. The markerlight firewarriors tend to get ignored, and it is hard to shoot at sniper drones.

I'm torn when it comes to the piranha...being able to take objectives at the end of the game and potentially take out armor with a fusion gun is nice, but a deep striking fusion suit can do it cheaper and more reliably unless you have a ton of terrain. They just seem to die or hide all game when I play with them.

I want.

7000 points in Deathwing or 7000 points in Fireknives I don't know which would be cooler.

Like I said, the uber large Farsight Council isn't spectacular in a competitive list for these reasons:

1. It is very large model-wise. One can't easily hide 7 crisis suits and 12 shield drones from everything on the board. In games of escalation, it is even worse as an ordinance template will get many of the models. On top of that, against many armies deviation may cause you to enter difficult terrain or hit enemy units. This isn't quite as big a deal with a smaller squad.
2. A poor LD roll (even at -1) can cause the unit to run off the board. This happened in 2/3 of my games with my Council at Adepticon last year.
3. Using the majority I to determine sweeping advances means an enemy can assault the unit and if it can avoid Farsight himself, actually sweeping advance the entire unit. Even throwing relatively cheap units into HTH with the Council will effectively blunt its effectiveness. You really don't want to be in HTH.
4. Farsight can be targeted with a retinue. With the drones, it will be a hard unit, but the enemy is likely to pour everything at the unit. That may be intended, but if the majority of your firepower is in that one unit, it can be difficult to overcome their loss.
5. A 'standard' 'Vre config comes out to 112points per crisis suit. You'll want to add some additional target locks and most likely, a failsafe detonator which will up the points cost even more. IIRC, my total cost for the unit was over 900 points. That severely limits your other choices and how much they can focus on their firepower and maneuverability.
6. People in a tourney can really consider the Farsight Council cheesy. People really liked my list until I told them I had 8 suits in one unit. Then I was called cheesy. I didn't win a single game in the tourney, but my comp wasn't the best.
7. The other unit restrictions really crimp the flexibility most Tau lists can use. You aren't going to be using three hammerheads for example. You won't be using the Kroot infiltrate pushback/speedbump unit. You'll be using 'second tier' tau units like sniper drones, skyrays, pathfinders, and piranhas more than most non-Farsight players.

That said, I don't want to discourage anybody from playing Farsight. I certainly do, but I think most non-Tau players immediately think "7 suit retinue; that's awesome" when in practice it is better to rely on the elite units to do the lion's share of tasks. The tau army works best when the entire army can contribute and work together. Putting so much emphasis on a single, focused unit that can be broken a variety of ways is probably not the best option. Like any other unit in a Tau list, task the Farsight unit with something the rest of the army has difficulty doing and build it appropriately.

I'm confident that you are a good general, but I recommend playing a normal Tau army first and then looking at how to integrate Farsight into your normal playing style.

Hope this helps.

BTW - I recommend using 2 man Crisis teams as they are much easier to maneuver and you don't need to buy the team leader upgrade for the bonding knife. I can almost guarantee one of your squads should be helios or MP/FB for anti-tank and a monat isn't reliable while 3 suits will be targeted much more aggressively while suffering from the other limits of a 3 man team.

Dal'yth Dude wrote:
In games of escalation, it is even worse as an ordinance template will get many of the models. On top of that, against many armies deviation may cause you to enter difficult terrain or hit enemy units. This isn't quite as big a deal with a smaller squad.

Just because they're jump infantry doesn't mean you have to deep strike them. Why would you? They should almost all armed with missile pods - you should be able to shoot anything you want, the turn you arrive, if you just enter from a board edge. This might also help keep you further away from assault units.

Using the majority I to determine sweeping advances means an enemy can assault the unit and if it can avoid Farsight himself, actually sweeping advance the entire unit. Even throwing relatively cheap units into HTH with the Council will effectively blunt its effectiveness. You really don't want to be in HTH.

I don't know, with the changes to daemons, and weakening of new orks, if there are any close-combat armies that have the combination of speed and resilience to close with farsight anymore. Maybe blood angels with multiple assault units... But farsight's council, with their boosted WS & I stats, and shield drone escort, seem competent enough to handle some assault. I'm sure it will happen, but farsight's council can lay out some hurt in assault too. And, having one bodyguard with the "i'll take one for the team" might also help in the eventuality that you do get assaulted.

And, your opponent is likely to pour as much fire into the unit as possible, but you should be able to use the assault move and some terrain to reduce the number of shots you're taking, and losing a handful of drones does nothing to reduce your firepower.

I stopped playing my farsight army because it couldnt be beat. Except by godzilla nids.

I ran 15 xv8s plus oshava most of them fire knife, a few headhunters (fusion plas). lots of fire warriors and a hammer head to back that up and your set. Mostly played at 1850, ill see if I can find my list and post it.

Dont worry about the unit restrictions they really dont hurt it at all.

I'm wanting to try a Farsight Breakaway army for a change. But I'm not sure the best way to proceed in my army setup. I have every unit in the Tau army except for the Pirhana's. For suits I only have 6 and a spare one to use as Farsight.

The learning curve will be steep but once mastered can be a formidable list. If you think you can make it work and have the patience to perfect the list I think it's very doable. Thier was a old post on the old boards of a O'shovah list that did very well but I can't remember who penned it any longer.

lambadomy wrote:I've played farsight in a lot of different configurations, mostly starting with a base of farsight + 6 bodyguards + 12 shield drones, and I've had good success with it (outside of my abysmal showing at the LA GT...but I digress)

Dude, was that you had them run off the board?

Or someone else?

I made a basic list that included a council the other night... with the new rapid insertion force it can be really quick to assemble and begin the ass kicking!

Farshight 170 Pts

Bodyguard
Shas 'vre
Missile pod, Plasma Rifle, Shield Drones, Targetting Array, Multi Tracker 113 pts
Shas 'vre
Missile pod, Plasma Rifle, Shield Drones, Targetting Array, Multi Tracker 113 pts
Shas 'vre
Missile pod, Fusion Blaster, Shield Drones, Targetting Array, Multi Tracker 104 pts
Shas 'vre
Missile pod, Fusion Blaster, Shield Drones, Targetting Array, Multi Tracker 104 pts
Shas 'vre
Missile pod, Fusion Blaster, Shield Drones, Targetting Array, Multi Tracker 104 pts
Shas 'vre
Missile pod, Burst Cannon, Shield Drones, Targetting Array, Multi Tracker 100 pts
Shas 'vre
Missile pod, Plasma Rifle, Shield Drones, Targetting Array, Multi Tracker 113 pts


The look on that SAFH marine player as you utterly ravage his force? Priceless.

Would you have a recommendation for Crisis suit setup?

as far as weapons go i have 2 set ups that i always favor-

The fire knife-plasma rifle/missle pod. it has lots of god advantages-more range, high strength weapons and good AP.
how you set up suit systems and hardwired gear(for bodyguards and such) is a matter of personal preference.


The other variant i like is the tank hunter-fusion blaster/missle pod. desinged to deepstrike in and kill vehicles.

None of the other weapons loadouts strike me as particularly usefull especialy as fire support weapons(they are tau afterall, stay out of CC range) since thier range is incredible short by comparison.

I run MP/PG on all suits, always, never anything else.

They're the core of my army, and effective against everything but LR's.

Which is what the Hammerheads are for.

Add in 6-12 markerlight units and you've got a fish full of barrels to shoot at.

Stelek:

I don't remember farsight running off the board for me at the tourney, but he might have...he spent the whole first game fighting Greg Sparks' tooled up chaos lord in CC so run off the board or just get slaughtered...whats the diff.

and no, I don't pretend I know what I'm doing (then or now) - for some reason I decided to take Farsight to the tournament having only played the list 3 or 4 times.

And I will second all PG/MP on suits. There are a few odd anti-horde things like the airbursting fragmentation projector or the CIB but they just aren't as useful as you'd hope. Against the new Orks I'm finding all PG/MP to be maybe not quite enough horde killing but it shouldn't be hard to find that elsewhere in the list.

Well it's ok, I took my Eldar to the tourney *never* having played them. lol I did allright.

How many suits do you run? I was running 7, but the world of 40K just got a bit harder over the past 2 years and I increased that to 10. And a second unit of Kroot is planned.

Can't wait for my Rapid Insertion Force and codex to get here.

In reference to the named patterns (Fireknife), are these in the codex or are they fan named like Fish of Fury and Fzorgle?

Is Farsight in the codex?

I have no idea. Everyone likes to make up new names for different configurations. I just ignore the names fans make up, don't make sense anyway...they're just for cool geek talk. Like acronyms in the military....

I normally play with 8 suits at 1500 points...two HQs and 3 squads of 2. I go with as many as 10 or 11 at 1850 but I don't like to have to do it because I don't like 3 man squads and I don't like giving up IC status on my HQ. Farsight list had only 9 - Him, a 6 man council, a HQ and a monat suit. It was all I had painted at the time, but again at 1500 points it's tough to cram more in there for a farsight list, he's much better at 1750-1850 I think, I could probably do with a smaller council.

Now I normally play with three railheads, a couple 15-20 man squads of kroot, and 8 suits. But I don't play against hard enough lists on a regular basis to feel that I need more suits. I'm trying out burst/MP suits as extra suits because they're almost as effective as PG/MP suits outside of rapid fire range against MEQ, and way better against orks. But I think I'm going to need to find anti-horde firepower just by adding back in more firewarriors. Of course, I have to play the new orks almost every week, so my metagame is biased towards worrying about them.

Flagg07: Farsght is in the codex (commander O'Shovah). The crisis suit names are not in the codex, they're fan names. You may be able to find the definitions on advancedtautactica

Actually the names such as monat and fire knife are names given to the different arrangements on the GW website. It was in an article dedicated to battlesuit tactics if my memory serves. Its just that the geeks like to refer to them like that cause they are making up for lacking in other areas.

To be fair, it's easier and sounds better to say "monat" than "lone Crisis suit," or "Fireknife" instead of "MP + PR Crisis suit."

Farsight is a very potent list. Try the search funciton for some of my thoughts / experiences with it from about 1yr+ ago. I took 21st in the final (lost to Greg Spark's double siren list and the eventual top tau army) and just took 3rd at Heat 3. The 2nd place Tau Empire in Heat 3 was a player using a variation on my list from last year.

Obviously there are certain things you don't want to engage (like chaplains with thunderhammers for example), but the only factions which are currently very bad match-ups for a well designed the list are double lash lists, double/triple monoliths, hormie heavy tyranids and FotD lists. New Orks are going to a big problem with their 60 or so stormboyz, special character commandos, and ramshackle rules.

RedBeard: It is true one can move them onto the board of the edge in games of escalation. I don't count on it. The scenario conditions and unit placement when the Council arrives may make board edges too risky. Maybe I've just had the unit run off the board edge too many times.

Of course O'Shova has good stats in HTH, but he's only one guy. The 'vres still have the majority I in most cases of HTH. I still think the unit is much better shooting with up to 14 PR shots and 12 MP shots within 12". Much better than 4 WS5, S5 power weapon attacks IMO.

It seems others are better at the list than I am so I will defer to their replies.

Correct me if I' wromg, but crisis suits are te back bone of any farsight enclave. Crisis suits reall should be the back bone of any tau army so of cours it's a good list. When you get down to it your paying the extra points for farsight for free bonding and a single close combat character. None of my local players take 15 crisis suits. So while the idea of an farsight army seems cool ( and it is) it doesn't offer any real benefie over a regular tau army. I'm going out on a limb to say that a 900 point counsul is useless without inv save which drives up the cost. I love farsight, but I don't see any advantage in taking him.

My main point was any tau list that takes alot of Crisis Suits will generaly do well.

Well thats a given
Tau excell and mobile shooting

Crisis suits/vehicles make the army viable. if you want a static gun line you should be playing imperial guard.

Farsight enclave is not really a 'good' list.

It can be made workable, but in the end you have the same Tau army as everyone else.

You shoot, you move.

You are Imperial Guard v2.

Yes, really.