Tau Codex Review: Commanders, Farsight & Shadowsun
Onto the beloved (and required) Commander. The Commander is essentially a 'super' Crisis suit which will be reviewed later. What the Commander therefore offers the Tau army is a leader who can equip himself with all manner of ranged weaponry to compliment his army (much like Crisis suits) but is terrible at combat (much like Tau). Whilst there are a lot of options such as Iridium Armor and the escape pod thing, most of the upgrades really aren't worth bothering with as a bare bones commander with appropriate weapons is simply a more expensive but better statlined Crisis suit who, as we will discuss later, are fine as they are. The main point of this post therefore is to look at the special characters Shadowsun and Farsight. We'll take a peek at Farsight first...
Farsight is the special commander character of Tau, using the same 'concept' of a normal commander for his role, statline and abilities. He however, has drunk too much kool-aid and thinks an awesome chaos weapon sword thing makes him rock at combat. It doesn't, so that is an unforuntate waste of a weapons slot! 4+ invul is kinda nice for a character but I'm sure you pay the 20pts for it in his price...and normally Tau are fine without invuls seeing as they can get cover with JSJ and shouldn't be in combat anyway. This also makes you pause at why he gives Tau units preferred enemy against Orks...I mean really. He also limits the number of quite a few important units which you can take. Namely, Pathfinders, Hammerheads, Broadsides and Piranhas to 0-1. Oh and no kroot. Ouch. So what does he actually do for the army? Well all your units lead by a team leader+ get a bonding knife for free! Mini-ATSKNF isn't that bad but is no where near overcoming all the setbacks Farsight brings to the army. He also comes with a bigger bodyguard than usual, up to 7 suits. This is pretty cool except they are all paying Shas'vre prices (i.e. an extra 10pts for next to no reason). This unit becomes expensive fast and is terrible in combat and is often better done by simply taking 2-3 Crisis squads who can be protected by Kroot and backed up by multiple Piranhas, Pathfinders, Broadsides & Hammerheads. Unfortunately Farsight simply guts the Tau core by limiting those units and really is a poor choice as he stands.
Shadowsun next before we see if we can fix these guys. I'm going to skip to the command-link drone because this is what Ethereals should kind of be like (or Aun'Va at least). Improving Tau leadership of reliability is good. Tick for Shadowsun there. She packs 2 fusion blasters which can be targeted at seperate units (tick for that) but no long ranged weaponry. This again isn't fitting with the Tau army of 'shoot from far away until dead.' Combined with her stealth generator and you wonder why they would give her such short-ranged weaponry... though 2 shield drones + a 4++ invul is nice. If she was a bit cheaper she'd be usable just for her morale improvement but without a long-ranged weapon she is essentially apoint sink for the Tau army.
So, Commanders will be 'fixed' in the Crisis review (i.e. dumbed down maybe?) but let's take a look at Farsight and Shadowsun and see if there are any patches we can do to make these characters more usable. Firstly, point drop. Tau characters/leaders shouldn't be expensive otherwise more generic leaders will be picked by players. Shadowsun @ 125pts or maybe 140 with 2 missile pods would be a much more appropriate buy. However, I think these special characters should focus on changing the FoC chart and leave leadership advantages to the Ethereals (you've then got a clear list of advantages and disadvantages). Farsight also needs to knock off the army restriction crap. Crisis suits as Troops is obvioulsy overpowered to the max and if we assume XV-9's will come into play, making Crisis suits Elites & FA with Farsight may not be the best idea [though if XV-9's are more close range shooting oriented, it's plausible). Unless Crisis suits are dumbed down a lot then, they should really stay where they are so I can't see much FoC swapping with Farsight whilst remaining balanced. Perhaps all suit squads (inc. Stealth, XV-9, XV-88 and XV8 + any new variants) are allowed access to the armory even without a team leader? And keep the improved bodyguard numbers but make Shas'vre less points or not have them as Shas'vre.
For Shadowsun, unless a new suit is introduced with the codex (i.e. the XV22) she should make Stealth suits count as Troops. With the changes potentially discussed in the Stealth suit review, these units wouldn't be completely useless but if FW are changed appropriately, could be a very popular choice in Troops (remember they can't ride transports) for a full suit army. The main change needed to Shadowsun though is making her a more offensive threat. Her stealth field should be 2x2D6 minimum and longer ranged fusion blasters would compliment the average range of her stealth field adequetly.
In summary, both of the commander SCs are currently too big of a point sink in a Tau army and completely at odds in how one should operate a Tau army. Whilst Shadowsun has an excellent ability in improving Tau morale, she is essentially an expensive paperweight with the rest of her outfit. The proposed changes attempt to streamline the SCs into much cheaper versions of what they currently are whilst changing the make-up of the Tau army and leaving the morale buffing to Ethereals (i.e. suit-centric). What are your thoughts? Should Commanders stay pro-offensive and FoC changing or do they need a complete re-think from their basic concepts?
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