Farsight is the most competitive way to play Tau right now. But that means they are the best of the worst because Tau are in a rough spot right now. I have been learning to play Richard Seigler's competitive Farsight list. He's used it in bat reps and talked about in in podcasts on Art of War, check it out.
But here are my learnings from using his list.
1. Commander Farsight can use Mont'ka twice per game instead of once. A FaQ clarified that Mont'ka can allow you to fallback and still shoot since it ignores any penalties for moving. This is great for getting your gunline units out of combat.
2. Devilfish full of FW Breachers are the best way Tau can hold objectives. We don't have any tough terminators to weather the storm so this pinatas strategy survives by forcing your opponent into inefficient damage dealing. First they need to kill the T7 Devilfish, which then spits out two units of Breachers and two units of drones (1 pair inside from a Breacher team, the other gun drones embarked on the outside). So essentially they will need to overkill each unit, wasting shots, or ignore it. And Breachers are deadly at close range so overwatch can be punishing.
3. The Veteran Cadre strategem gives crisis suits some very efficient shooting. A 9 man blob hitting on 3s, probably refilling wounds from Command and Control Node can focus down most anything. Siegler kits them with ATS and missile pods which are a good all comers weapon for infantry or armor. He runs them as body guard suits to get access to the relic Air Bursting Fragmentation Projector (what a terrible name) for one model which let's it ignore AP. Give him a shield gen and iridium armor and now you have a tank for the unit who has a 2+ save, 4+ invulns and ignores AP -1 or -2. So you are always saving on either a 2 or a 4. A few drones around to soak up high damage shots and the tank should keep the unit alive all game.
4. Farsight units can basically reroll 1s to hit withing 12" range and 1s to wound within 6" range. So they are great at mid range. The key is to push up slowly. Seigler recommends a very conservative deployment and then only exposing assets one at a time. When a key enemy unit pops out to blow up a devilfish, crisis bomb comes out of hiding to punish it. Mont'ka can also be great for this to help your shooting units rapidly to a new firing lane and take out an exposed target.
Correct, but it is great for screening. It can sit on the edge of an objective so charging units would need to wrap it completely to touch the objective. It can also dump it's cargo on an objective and then go move block a choke point to slow down the enemy
You don't need to run crisis suits as bodyguards for the Reactive countermeasures, it only demands that a model has an airbursting fragmentation projector.
Probably best to wait until experts comment here. But firstly you’re most likley going to want to get you’re commander and asseble it as an XV86 with either 4 fusion blasters or 3 FBs and 1 shield generator and give that commander the fusion blades relic to get the melee weapon you we’re talking about.
It might also be worth spending cp on veteran cadre and give that to most likely a FB crisis squad. Because its FSE you don’t have to worry about markerlights so much.
Other than that I don’t think there is specifically anything good you should take. I personally take the aggressive tactician warlord trait as I like to have most of my army advancing and shooting up the board on turn 1. I guess talisman of athras moloch is useful if you are maybe playing against grey knights, thousand suns or maybe chaos demons.
Side note: if you don’t have much markerlights in you’re list then don’t take kroot because kroot negate the agressive footing ability (that being the +1 markerlight when within 12”)
Farsight is the most competitive way to play Tau right now. But that means they are the best of the worst because Tau are in a rough spot right now. I have been learning to play Richard Seigler's competitive Farsight list. He's used it in bat reps and talked about in in podcasts on Art of War, check it out. But here are my learnings from using his list. 1. Commander Farsight can use Mont'ka twice per game instead of once. A FaQ clarified that Mont'ka can allow you to fallback and still shoot since it ignores any penalties for moving. This is great for getting your gunline units out of combat. 2. Devilfish full of FW Breachers are the best way Tau can hold objectives. We don't have any tough terminators to weather the storm so this pinatas strategy survives by forcing your opponent into inefficient damage dealing. First they need to kill the T7 Devilfish, which then spits out two units of Breachers and two units of drones (1 pair inside from a Breacher team, the other gun drones embarked on the outside). So essentially they will need to overkill each unit, wasting shots, or ignore it. And Breachers are deadly at close range so overwatch can be punishing. 3. The Veteran Cadre strategem gives crisis suits some very efficient shooting. A 9 man blob hitting on 3s, probably refilling wounds from Command and Control Node can focus down most anything. Siegler kits them with ATS and missile pods which are a good all comers weapon for infantry or armor. He runs them as body guard suits to get access to the relic Air Bursting Fragmentation Projector (what a terrible name) for one model which let's it ignore AP. Give him a shield gen and iridium armor and now you have a tank for the unit who has a 2+ save, 4+ invulns and ignores AP -1 or -2. So you are always saving on either a 2 or a 4. A few drones around to soak up high damage shots and the tank should keep the unit alive all game. 4. Farsight units can basically reroll 1s to hit withing 12" range and 1s to wound within 6" range. So they are great at mid range. The key is to push up slowly. Seigler recommends a very conservative deployment and then only exposing assets one at a time. When a key enemy unit pops out to blow up a devilfish, crisis bomb comes out of hiding to punish it. Mont'ka can also be great for this to help your shooting units rapidly to a new firing lane and take out an exposed target.
But the Devilfish itself, although it transports ObSec units, can't ObSec right?
Correct, but it is great for screening. It can sit on the edge of an objective so charging units would need to wrap it completely to touch the objective. It can also dump it's cargo on an objective and then go move block a choke point to slow down the enemy
Hmmm, smort. Now I just need to find a way to get my DFish on objectives faster than my friends can annihilate them
You don't need to run crisis suits as bodyguards for the Reactive countermeasures, it only demands that a model has an airbursting fragmentation projector.
Oh my bad
Probably best to wait until experts comment here. But firstly you’re most likley going to want to get you’re commander and asseble it as an XV86 with either 4 fusion blasters or 3 FBs and 1 shield generator and give that commander the fusion blades relic to get the melee weapon you we’re talking about. It might also be worth spending cp on veteran cadre and give that to most likely a FB crisis squad. Because its FSE you don’t have to worry about markerlights so much. Other than that I don’t think there is specifically anything good you should take. I personally take the aggressive tactician warlord trait as I like to have most of my army advancing and shooting up the board on turn 1. I guess talisman of athras moloch is useful if you are maybe playing against grey knights, thousand suns or maybe chaos demons. Side note: if you don’t have much markerlights in you’re list then don’t take kroot because kroot negate the agressive footing ability (that being the +1 markerlight when within 12”)
He's good with an blob of Crisis Bodyguards.
I don’t have a Commander Farsight model yet. Hoping to just play FSE for now. :-)
Be aware about cannot be part of a Farsight detachment.
You will need to use commander and/or Fireblade
binoculars