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Was GW full of zombie staff when they wrote his rules, because although I find his background to be very interesting and he is cheap for a special character he is NOT worth what you pay for him

e.g.
I says the farsight enclave trains heavily in HTH and what do they get to represent this? preferred enemy against orks.

The unit restrictions, because of the unit restrictions you would expect them to have improved stats in some way (but cost more to represent this and balance it out).

Sure the dawn blade is good because you count as str 10 against vehicles (even monos) and it counts as a power weapon.

Opinions?

(if this is in the wrong place please move)

I am in the process of painting my Ork Meganob that is in a Tau Battlesuit like Farsight...does that count?

This isn't really fit for the fluff section if you are asking about his ingame effectiveness. His fluff is cool...

In-game. He is a worthwhile powerful character. The bonus you need to really look for is the 7 man bodyguard unit he is allowed to take.

If you make a suit heavy list, then the restrictions on other units to take doesn't affect you. And an 8 uniquely equipped suit unit with 6-10 drones is virtually unkillable with shooting. Coupled with other standard 3man teams, you have a lot of shooting.

but the unit restrictions restrict on the crappy units like kroot and vespids, omfg!

@Shep what I am trying to point out is that Farsight's fluff (although really cool) isn't reflected in his rules (except maybe I 5)
and the 7 suit crisis guard is cool if you have a good AUS$250 lying in wallet. (I have a habit of making stuff sound like rants don't know why) now that I think about it the 7 suit guard is pretty good in combat because they are all S5 T4

@thedarkside69 and it also limits all non FW and CS to 0-1

My buddy and I had a Tau-necron grudge match, where we built lists specifically designed to kill each other.

I took Farsight + 7 suits, all uniquely equipped, and all of them with plasma, fusion, or both and sometimes twin-linked. That's a lot of AP1 and AP2, plenty of rapid fire, and I deep-struck them (with a pathfinder devilfish on the table) for rerolls.

He was a sad panda when his entire destroyer complement incinerated without a single save, and had no way to WBB.

Krellnus wrote:@Shep what I am trying to point out is that Farsight's fluff (although really cool) isn't reflected in his rules (except maybe I 5)
and the 7 suit crisis guard is cool if you have a good AUS$250 lying in wallet. (I have a habit of making stuff sound like rants don't know why) now that I think about it the 7 suit guard is pretty good in combat because they are all S5 T4

@thedarkside69 and it also limits all non FW and CS to 0-1

Um... Where does one GW character fully translate into rules?

I suppose you are right, but compared to other special characters (e.g. Cato Sicarius, Marneus Calgar) he is not on par if you catch my drift.

I don't know much about Tau.

I have, however, bought the Tau Codex recently. After this glorious Valentine's Day weekend, shall read his little fluff blurb and his rules and get back to you on my not-so-humble opinion.

Well I agree that his fluff doesn't really fit with his abilities. As a character he should bring more bonuses to HtH for his army seeing as they train heavily in cc.

The thing is the main disadvantage of Tau is their terrible H2H so if the Farsight Tau were made better no-one would play ordinary Tau anymore.

True, but then there are restrictions. 0-1 hammerheads sounds good, as does 0-1 broadside teams. Reduces their firepower quite substantially.

Lukus83 wrote:True, but then there are restrictions. 0-1 hammerheads sounds good, as does 0-1 broadside teams. Reduces their firepower quite substantially.

One Hammerhead and a Broadside team provides a lot of anti-tank firepower. The loss of SMS and large blast firepower can be compensated by taking more FW and Devilfish.

Farsight gives you preferred enemy against Orks, which lets you reroll missed hits in hand to hand.

The entire concept is ludicrous because the outcome in any game that involves Tau and Orks in hand to hand is going to be the same regardless of whether Tau get to reroll missed hits in close combat.

Well if you remeber, correct me if im wrong, but he was the main leader in the 2nd sphear expansion. Also while he was out there, he mainly only fought Orks. So if you want to get deep into it then think, if they mainly fought the Orks then how could they be better in HTH with other forces they have not faced as much? Just someting to ponder on really. But his fluff is quite intresting especially how the Blade could be from an Eldar God.

In farsights fluff it also says that the farsight enclave also train heavily in HtH. Plenty of training there. Perhaps giving them preferred enemy against all opponents would be a slightly better deal, though tau would still suck at cc against everything.

Ok, I'll have a go at defending his rules-fluff relationship.

I have the third and fourth edition codexes open in front of me.

Ok... the rules.

Dawn Blade. He found this thing. It is magic, might be giving him extra long life, might just be really good at cutting. Only tau power weapon in existence. That alone is a very unique and important thing.

Ork Fighter. Preferred enemy orks for the entire army. That is not a big deal for some units, but is quite a big deal for farsights bodyguard. With a big unit like that carrying 18 wounds plus drones, at T4 with a 3+ save, they can easily take on a weakened ork unit. The suits get rerollable swings with strength 5, and the drones get re-rollable swings that go before orks. That unit fits in the fluff quite well actually, farsight can easily get in the mix with standard ork units. Maybe not their combat specialists, or full strength ork mobs, but you have shooting for a reason.

Breakaway faction. He is a rebel, he doesn't have as many friends as he used to have. This rule doesn't effect you if you are playing at any reasonable points limit. Did you buy a massive bodyguard? Did you buy more units of suits? If so you wouldn't even have points for more than one broadside unit and a hammerhead.

Blood brothers. Cool military fraternity thing. He makes all the fire warriors and crisis suits better for free.

Bodyguard. We already talked about this.


I think he works pretty good as an assault unit, he just assaults after he has shot something 90% to piss. Thats a lot more aggressive of a stance than most tau, who espouse close combat altogether.

Shep, then it would make more sense fluff-wise to just give crisis suits preferred enemy unit against Orks.

At the end of a day, a squad of firewarriors with Preferred Enemy that gets to reroll misses in Hand to Hand against orks (who are assaulting them I promise you) is pretty dumb. You won't ever see my firewarriors running out of the trenches to assault some Orks!

@patrickparker1224 if you trained in HTH for a while then gradually your toughness, strength and reflexes would improve you all round.

Lukus83 wrote:In farsights fluff it also says that the farsight enclave also train heavily in HtH. Plenty of training there. Perhaps giving them preferred enemy against all opponents would be a slightly better deal, though tau would still suck at cc against everything.

That doesn't make sense, I thought better HtH skills means higher WS. Farsight enclave's got the worst fluff to stats ever.

Indeed; its part of the reason I vote Tau as the worst race in 5th edition. True line of sight, sub-par shooting abilities, lack of customization like other races have, and special characters that add nothing to the battlefield.

Farsight is definitely the best special character (Ever met anyone who uses an ethereal? I haven't....) and his "specialness" lets him have preferred enemy against Orks, while at the same time gimping your army list to 0-1 for almost everything except for aliens for which you get none because he's racist.

He costs 170 points. If you stick that 170 points up against 170 point special character from another army....its ugly. Take orks for example. Mad Dok Grotsnik is 160 points; he's the first thing that comes to mind. Give both units a retinue...say 7 suits that are equipped differently. I play Tau, I have a unit like that: Farsight+7 suits = Farsight Bomb. 491 points, + Farsight is 661 points.

For 661 points, I can get a ridiculous number of Orks. For 500 points on the button, I can make a unit of 30 'Ard Boyz with a Nob and Power Klaw, and attach Mad Dok to it. And mad Dok confers fearless and Feel No pain on the entire unit. A whole unit of 4+ armor, 4+ Feel No Pain for a bunch less points than the Tau best character, who gives preferred enemy against Orks.

When other races get their HtH bumped up, they get +D6 attacks, or enemy attacks lowered by 1, or combat resolution altered. I feel gimped.

I think we shall have to wait and see the 5th edition tau codex (when and if it is released) and see the balance they should add to it.

There's a massive thread over in the "Proposed rules" forum about how to fix Tau that might be worth checking out.

But yeah...for now, I'm gamely enjoying playing my wife's orks while I let my Tau sit inside their case and contemplate what a sucky army they are.

After reading his fluff and rules, really think he's fine. Shep sums it up greatly.

I think you guys are wanting too much. Tau are meant to suck in HtH. No body shoots as good as they do, it's their trade off. Great guns and shooting, weak HtH.

Yes, Tau are meant to suck in HtH.

However, the "no one shoots as good as Tau" no longer applies.

Imperial Guard can shoot as well as Tau. An Ork Gunline can outshoot a Tau gunline. Tau don't hold the edge in shooting anymore.

I wouldn't say that "no one shoots as good as Tau" ever applied,. Tau have (at least since 4e) always been about mobile firepower, not just straight firepower. IG gunlines have always been stronger, and as for orks...well I'm not going to get into that. Making comparisons for pretty much any army against the best units in the ork codex will make that army look expensive.

Farsight's rules aren't perfect for his fluff, but they aren't the end of the world.

He likes crisis suits - crisis suits are 1+. and he can have 7 bodyguards. I've had 20 suits in a Farsight army, just because I could. Check.

He's a breakaway renegade and has less other resources - most other FA, elite and HS things are 0-1. Check.

He's a racist - can't have kroot or vespid. check.

He trains more in CC. Well, part of this is covered by the preponderance of Crisis suits - crisis suits are obviously better than fire warriors in CC (duh...they're 4x as many points each, but still). Since they do this training mostly to fight orks, I can see how it can only be preferred enemy against orks, though game-wise this sucks, you never want special rules that only help you against one army. And sure you don't want to charge orks with fire warriors...but if you shot up 12 boys in a trukk with 12 firewarriors with carbines, and then charged them, you'd do ok:

12 shots, 6 hits, 4 wounds, 4 dead orks.

charge, 24 attacks, 18 hits, 6 wounds, 5 dead orks. Orks fight at same I...7 slugga boys with 21 attacks, 14 hits, 7 wounds, 3.5 dead FW. Klaw goes 3 attacks, 2 hits, 2 dead FW. So FW will win by one or tie most of the time if they charge.

I'm not trying to say you'd ever do this, or this would happen and the FWs wouldn't get shot first, etc...just pointing out that 11 orks and a PK nob getting shot/assaulted by farsight assault firewarriors isn't a death sentence (and allowing yourself to get charged definitely IS a death sentence.

The farsight squad itself is a different beast - it is reasonably effective in CC, especially if you tool it up to 700+ points. You're forgetting it's still a shooty unit...8 plasma guns and 7 missile pods are nothing to sneeze at. Against the 'ard boyz with the mad doc for example, they'll be pumping in 16 plasma shots before they charge, and likely killing 11 orks (at BS 5...). This doesn't even count Missile pod or flamer or whatever else you're shooting...if it's MP say 4 more dead orks. Charging the remaining 15 Ard boyz is a worse proposition...Farsight hits 3 times and kills 2, the 7 suits only kill 5 (21 attacks, 3/4 to hit, , we won't even bother with the drone attacks. That leaves 6 boyz and the doc and the PK nob, which only do 3 or 4 unsaved wounds on average.

Anyway, this is all academic (though I have charged and killed large boyz squads with farsight, I have to avoid being charged or it's over with a capital O). Farsight enclaves rules could be better but I think they do a good job capturing his fluff for now. I'd obviously want more interesting CC bonus rules (something that worked against multiple armies at least). But as was said before the restrictions have to balance with the bonuses or people would only use Farsight.

Krellnus wrote:I think we shall have to wait and see the 5th edition tau codex (when and if it is released) and see the balance they should add to it.

THEY'D BETTAH!!!

@Asmodeus Virtually everything can out shoot tau, except for their weapons S5. 5 SM, 2 with H bolters get 6 shots at the FW that are out of range for them to return fire and negates their armour save.

However lambadomy is right in that they are about mobile firepower. E.g. for 1200 points you can take 72 firewarriors mounted in devil fish and if you are smart you can get 144 S5 AP5 rapid fire shots by the second turn and be out of charge range.

The pulse rifle's S5 compensates for BS3 and lets Fire Warriors shoot as well as SMs. The range 30 is useful if the enemy decide to stand around between 24 and 30 inches and let you shoot at them (as if) -- that's why Tau need mobility.

In straight up shooting matches, FW have always had a problem facing an enemy with any decent heavy weapons attached to his infantry squads. Tau need the Crisis suits to bring their missile pods into play -- this is why Tau need combined arms tactics as well as mobility.

The Hammerhead Railgun is one of the best weapons in the game because of its range and twin capability (area fire, and anti-tank.) That is the one area that Tau have a clear shooting superiority.

Dashofpepper wrote:Indeed; its part of the reason I vote Tau as the worst race in 5th edition. True line of sight, sub-par shooting abilities, lack of customization like other races have, and special characters that add nothing to the battlefield.

You're joking right? Oh, you mean like how much the Necrons have customization? Oh, I know how about the Dark Eldar.

I've played against a lot of Tau players. They're not having any problems in 5th. Did they have to readjust their play style? Yes. Do they still kick butt and place in tourneys? Yes.

You guys are crying like a bunch of has-been's remembering the 1980's when ya coulda been big.

Tau are still an amazing race and still amazingly viable. Try things you've not tried before. Try units you neglected. I think you're all giving up too easily.