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Alright. I'm looking at maybe picking up a few Tau models on a "Just for the hell of it" sort of whim, and as such I'm wondering what the general consensus is on Commander Farsight. The fact that he allows multiple units of Crisis Suits looks rather appealing on the surface, but I'm not sure if his other limitations make him really worth taking.

Remedied.

Farsight is in the current Tau Empire codex.

Lies. O'Shovah is in the current Tau Empire dex. The special character we lost was Aun'shi. Although, I am confused, seeing as despite your impression that Farsight is no longer being in the codex, you give a synopsis that details his rules from the current codex, rather than the 3rd ed one.


Farsight's okay. He doesn't really change all that much about Crisis suit units. As it is, you aren't restricted from taking Crisis suits in a normal army; you can fit 15 of them in a normal list. (9 elite and 6 HQ). O'Shovah just forces you to take one elite slot of suits, and ups the max number of suits you'll can field to 20(9 elite and 11 HQ).

The big downsides are that he restricts your access to tanks and auxiliaries, and he doesn't even count as your required Crisis commander, which is pretty BS right there. Commander Farsight doesn't count as a Commander? On top of that he just doesn't synergize that well. He's a combat hero providing combat bonuses in a shooting army, and not great ones either. At least Aun'va and Shadowsun, in thier lackluster way, help fill gaps in the Tau skillset by providing leadership and morale bonuses. Farsight doesn't really have any advantage except to provide a big unit of Crisis suits that have a power weapon with them. He's more of a fluff hero than a utility one. Shadowsun, is in my mind, the best of the Tau special characters at the moment, and if nothing else, makes a great basis for a commander conversion.

I have to admit though, with our old codex and the 4th ed ruleset, Farsight was a BEAST. He was an IC (untargetable unless closest model), and counted as a MC in combat. That meant that he could get to combat with relative impunity since he was an IC and didn't count as an MC until he got there. Once there, he counted as 10 models for outnumber purposes, denied armor, and had 2d6 armor penetration. These days, outnumber's gone and he doesn't provide anything special except a shiny sword. (And Preferred Enemy Orks, but that's of limited utility.)

just a quick question.. i recently purchased two squads of fire warriors and I'm not sure if it's better to have one pulse rifle and one pulse carbine, or mix it up a little?

okay... well thanks

Skip the carbines. If you're going mobile, the extra shot at 12" is easily achievable with Devilfish and more useful than pinning. If you play static, then the extra 12" of range plus the extra shot when things get too close for comfort is WAY more useful. Perhaps in a future version of the Tau codex Carbines will be more useful, but right now Pinning is so naff that it's simply not worth it.