26 Oct 2010

Farsight, why he doesn't work



About two weeks ago I said I was going to write up a Farsight list. My intention was to write up a different list than the usual "Farsight Bomb" that is most commonly found when searching the interwebs. The best I could come up with was a variation on my 1750 Mobile Missile Line list. That basically wasn't worth posting. Farsight allows extra suits, but he costs more than a Deathrain team on his own.

More details after the break





Lorewise, Farsight is dam interesting and could be pretty awesome in the next codex. Gaming wise? - He sucks.  The problem with Farsight isn't so much his limitations but also it's what he forces you to take. Your Heavy Support and Fast Attack are no brainers as you need anti tanks and blockers, You need two or three Firewarrior Squads in Devilfish if you want to do any objective missions. See a problem here? Before you start making your juicy Crisis Suit teams your points pool is already draining fast. Sure he can be a Deep Striking, Deathstar unit of pain, but you're then stuck with nothing to hide behind, (And likely a lot of melta or ap3 weapons that will maneuver to hurt you) and not much to support it with. What he brings to your army simply doesn't outweigh what he removes. By all means use him for one off surprise games or games with friends, but In any regular or ongoing scenario like a club campaign or tournament setting, will bring you nothing but "Dam I wish I had more Railguns or Kroot Wrap ()"
 He's a character that deserves to be a core of Tau armies as it present a totally different strategy. (oh if only his bodyguards were decent in CC too and Crisis Suits became troops) I'm sure he'll get the awesome slot he deserves when we get a codex update. My advice is not to use him in any game below 2000 points. At 1500 he's a point sponge, at 1750/1850 he's just not work the unit sacrifice.

Many people reading this will already know this about Farsight. My experience of him hasn't brought up anything new. Hopefully if you're new to Tau and you've not spent the 3 days reading up on him I have, then this post will explain why he's to be avoided.......For now.


3 comments:

Firewasp said...

Farsight, does have a place. Unfortunately that place is in apocalypse, where you can ignore the 0-1 limitation. Admittedly you still can't take kroot. But not much of a lose in apocalypse. Plus his (admittedly slight) advantage of free bonding knifes and preferred enemy against Orks get a lot better the bigger the points value.

NockerGeek said...

Farsight's an interesting character, and he'd be fun to run in a big casual list (or in Apoc, as Firewasp points out) along with his Seven Samurai. In any sort of "serious" list, though, he's too expensive and doesn't offer enough in return for his trade-offs. Losing the ability to run Kroot (not so big for me) or to double/triple up on Hammerheads and Broadsides (much bigger for me) makes him a liability rather than a strength. I'm sure he'll get revised well, but for now, not so much.

(Also, great use of Astray Red there. :D )

Gredus said...

Yeah, I started off thinking "I'm going to totally do an awesome Farsight/Crisis Suit list" and in the end I was like "Hey, where's all my points gone?"

In my last 2 games I've used Kroot wrong but now I can really see their effectiveness. Even if they just serve as a distraction it's something that is not shooting at, or engaging my suits in CC.

I guess for a Farsight list you could use Gundrones as a screen, but it's not very point friendly. There is so much crap out there with FNP and Fearless that wounds and pinning tests would be hard to force.

In a big game with his unit maxed out the'll be a pain to shift. Right up until the ap3 templates come down!

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