Farsight

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Shas'O Vior'la Shovah Kais Mont'yr, also known as Commander Farsight, who, like all Tau, has the longest name in the freaking world (it's actually even longer; his earlier names, like Shoh, are rarely used now that he has his honorary titles), is the closest thing the Tau have to a stone-cold grimdark badass. (Probably something to do with the fact that he's the only Tau who would choose a sword over a *deep breath* RIPTIDE-SUB-ATOMIC-PULSE-PLASMA-BLASTER-ION-CANNON-RAILGUN or whatever the hell.) He is one of the few beings in existence whom Orks fear.

He is also a clone of the Gundam character Char.

Once upon a time, there lived a Tau who had the word "hot-blooded" in his very name...

From the beginning, Farsight was a fiercely independent thinker and tactical genius who managed to get three years ahead of his fellow pupils with nothing but determination and planning; in fact, he was such a bright spark he ended up embarrassing his instructors, which led to a lot of them getting replaced. Though this led to some bad blood, Farsight moved past it, becoming a famed commander in his own right. However, Farsight's personal gut instincts and a desire for close, aggressive combat put him at odds with the Empire's battle doctrine. Farsight sucked it up and continued on as best he could, and finally was promoted to a battlesuit piloting role that he took to with gusto.

Back during the halcyon days of the major conquests of the Tau Empire, the majority of the army's victories could be attributed to a single commander: Puretide. Puretide was a legendary genius who wrote the book on Fire Caste tactics, and shaped the military for years to come. He was basically Sun Tzu 40k to the point where O'R'myr actually quotes Sun Tzu in the Taros Campaign book and it is attributed to Puretide. Puretide's many pupils were all famous warriors in their own right, and Puretide himself was so valuable that before he died of old age, the Earth Caste actually scanned his brain and encoded portions of his brilliance into what they called Puretide engram neurochips in order to help train future commanders. Farsight trained directly under Puretide, learning even more about battlefield tactics and strategy, and became one of his top pupils along with Commander Shadowsun and Shas'o Kais (yes, THAT Kais from Fire Warrior and Dawn of War). After studying with Papa Puretide himself, Farsight was made the leader of a massive Tau fleet and sent out to do the Empire's bidding. In his first deployment as mission commander, he performed amazingly, trouncing the Orks singlehandedly with skill and cunning. As he fought, the young Tau realized that aggressive, up-close combat was the key to defeating the Orks, and as a result became more comfortable with the idea of close quarters combat. Though he was unhappily reassigned to another battle zone before defeating the Orks completely, Farsight met with the Ethereal Aun'Shi, off of whom he modeled a style of close-combat battlesuit fighting which he applied for years afterwards.

Farsight's next big deployment was at Dal'yth during the Damocles Crusade. A branch of the Imperium's forces had launched a steamroller attack on the sept world, knocking over colonies, shelling planets and smashing fleets to get there. Though the attack was clumsy, the sheer grit and numbers of the Imperial Guard meant that the Tau were completely on the back foot, and only Farsight and Shadowsun's combined tactics managed to hold Dal'yth together. During this battle Farsight became aware of the unsettling power of human psyker and warp technology as well as their incredible fanaticism, and began to recognize an element of the latter in his own doctrines. In addition, some of his fellow commanders were implanted with Puretide engram neurochips by the Ethereals to make them as tactically capable as Puretide; however, Farsight found this horrifying when it turned his soldiers into robots with no will of their own and made them completely useless when psykers were involved (since Puretide had never encountered them). Finally, after a long and bloody war, the Imperium of Man had to pull out when the Tyranid Hive Fleet Behemoth reared its grotesque head in the Eastern Fringe and headed straight for Ultramar. After the war, Farsight discovered to his additional alarm that when the engram chips were removed, they left the commanders brain-dead. You can probably see where this is going.

However, the neurochip business was not enough for the Ethereals, who decided that some of Puretide's students should be cryogenically frozen so that they could be useful far beyond their meager lifespans. Puretide's three top pupils (Farsight, Shadowsun and Kais), all aggressive commanders with a bitter rivalry between them, were chosen for this. It was decided that the three would work in decades-long rotations, with one awake and two asleep at all times, kind of like the three vampire lords in Underworld were supposed to preside over the coven in turns. Of the three, Farsight was chosen to remain active first while Shadowsun and Kais were frozen to be brought back into service in the future, making him, for a time, the sole military hero of the Empire.

Gotta Go Your Own Way

The modern Farsight, armed to the probably-non-existent-because-they-rotted-away-due-to-age teeth.

After the Damocles Crusade, Farsight was tasked with rebuilding a series of lost colonies that had been overrun by Chaos forces. So Farsight set out with another huge fleet and a trio of Ethereals to repair the damage and take back planets. He set up a series of worlds that would become known as the Farsight Enclaves. Along the way he discovered some Orks in an asteroid belt and decided they should be destroyed, which conflicted with the Ethereals' primary objective of capturing more worlds and created tension between them and Farsight. During this drawn-out campaign against the Orks, Farsight and his Ethereal advisors ended up on the dead planet of Arthas Moloch, where a swarm of daemons was summoned after blood was spilled on a strange altar. In this costly battle Farsight discovered an ancient sword called the Dawn Blade, as well as statues bearing medallions that somehow repelled entities of Chaos. Farsight used these to shut the warp portal. During the fight, however, the daemons singled out and killed his Ethereals, but not before they revealed to Farsight that they had known about the ancient evil of Chaos, but lied to the Tau public about its existence for the sake of the Greater Good, kind of like what the Emperor did in the Great Crusade (except the Emperor knew human curiosity and Chaos mix very badly, whereas the Ethereals didn't have any reason to worry about their people being corrupted. The existence of daemons, though, would basically negate a lot of their highly secular teachings. Also similar to what the Prophets did in Halo to keep their power in the Covenant after discovering humans were "Reclaimers"). After the events on Arthas Moloch, Farsight understood the terrifying menace of the Immaterium and Chaos, which to him explained a great deal of things he had seen during his exploits. As he continued to ponder, it became obvious to the Commander that the Tau Empire's leadership was not benign, or at the very least woefully ignorant or in denial of the true perils of the galaxy. The Farsight Enclaves thereafter severed their ties with the Tau Empire and began to govern themselves. Farsight quietly left his battlesuit in a museum and went to be a hermit, believing that he himself was the greatest threat to the Empire thanks to his own subversive thoughts.

The Dawn Blade

The Dawn Blade is made of chronophagic (Greek for "time eating") alloys, so whenever Farsight kills something with it his life is extended (it basically steals the life force of the thing it kills and adds it to the wielder's). Considering he killed a lot of orks (who are biologically immortal) and daemons (who are truly immortal) with it, it's safe to say Shovah is practically immortal right now. Farsight does not know this, but he has his suspicions, and if he were to find out that his suspicions are correct he would most likely kill himself upon realizing that he's been unwittingly sucking the life out of his victims, only for it to immediately backfire as, presuming he used the Dawn Blade, his life force would immediately return to him. He also found multiple six sided medallions with anti-Warp properties in the same place he found the Dawn Blade. Trazyn probably lost some of his collection or something. But seriously, based on its age and eldritch abilities, the Dawn Blade is most likely a C'tan artifact or leftover technology of the Old Ones.

163 years later

The Tau Empire, having lost contact with the Farsight Enclaves, believed Farsight himself to be long dead and the Enclaves lost. One day, though, a probe discovered that the Enclaves were still there and flourishing, and had changed their sept markings and become Ethereal-free. Learning this, the Tau Empire branded Farsight a traitor and renamed the Enclaves the "Forbidden Zone", smashing all his statues throughout the Empire and trying to wipe him from public memory. This didn't sit well with everyone, especially members of the Fire Caste, and contacts within the Empire soon began secretly supplying the Enclaves with new weapons and hardware.

Over a hundred years later, the Enclaves came under threat from a Tyranid splinter fleet. Unsure of what to do, the leadership of the Enclaves suddenly got a message from a museum where an aged Farsight had suddenly shown up out of nowhere to demand his old battlesuit be removed from its display case and returned to him. Donning his armor once again, the Commander took over the defense, and thanks to some smart Earth Caste bio-engineering, managed to hold off the Great Devourer long enough to poison the fleet. Meanwhile Shadowsun, Farsight's old rival, was awakened from her cryogenic stasis in the Empire and sent back to war, and Farsight assembled a new team of elite battlesuit pilots, The Eight, to defend the Enclaves and stand opposed to the mysterious power the Ethereals held over their brethren.

The Eight

The Eight. From left to right: Torchstar, Ob'lotai, Sha'Vastos, Farsight himself, O'Vesa, Bravestorm, Brightsword, Arra'kon

Farsight's band of battlesuit aces. Think Seven Samurai, except with mecha and one more samurai. The Eight consist of:

• Sub-Commander Torchstar, a Tau Empire deserter and the youngest member of the team, this pyromaniac female Tau has flame tattoos on her body and pilots a Crisis suit. She even fights with dual flamers and a couple of marker drones. Hot enough for ya?
• Shas'vre Ob'lotai 9-0, an AI-controlled XV88 Broadside battlesuit armed to the teeth with twin-linked smart missile systems, twin-linked, high-yield missile pods, two missile drones, and a seeker missile. Based on the brain of Farsight's long-dead superior Ob'lotai. Actually did get destroyed during the events of Mont'ka, but being an AI they just slapped his engram in a new XV88 body.
• Commander Sha'vastos, an old comrade of Farsight and one of the commanders who was forcefully equipped with a Puretide engram neurochip. It was a prototype, however, and rapidly began to degrade, damaging Sha'vastos' mind, so Farsight put him in stasis and smuggled him out of the Empire. Years later his scientists finally managed to remove it safely, and in gratitude Sha'vastos fights alongside his friend and leader in his Crisis battlesuit outfitted with a plasma rifle, a flamer, and two gun drones.
• Farsight, leader of the Enclaves. Has very dark and cracked skin thanks to exposure to heat and flames, as well as a mechanical replacement leg. He pilots an XV8 Crisis battlesuit equipped with his trademark Dawn blade, a plasma rifle, and a shield generator mounted on one arm. Before finding the blade he used to mount a twin-linked fusion gun.
• Honor-Shas'vre O'Vesa, less of a Fire Caste warrior and more of an old Earth Caste mad scientist kept alive by microdrones, given the honorary title of "Shas" to denote his position as a warrior. Pilots a massive Riptide with excellent targeting arrays, an ion accelerator, a twin-linked fusion blaster, and a pair of shielded missile drones.
• Commander Bravestorm, a very old Tau who has been burned and scarred á la Darth Vader and cannot leave his iridium-plated (2+ Save) Crisis battlesuit after taking down dozens of Imperial tanks with an experimental weapon. Incredibly brave (duh) and fights with the last remaining Tau power fist-equivalent, the Onager Gauntlet. Too bad we don't actually know what it looks like and his official image doesn't depict it...(we can make a guess tho.) Also uses a plasma rifle, a flamer, and a pair of gun drones. (Re)Built to last, he also has a shield and stims injectors. His life support seems to have given him extended life, as he saves Farsight in Mont'Ka.
• Commander Brightsword, a generational pilot who inherited the title from the previous Brightsword. Posesses a scarred and pock-marked Crisis battlesuit that was also passed down, and fights with two fusion blades, which are melta swords that can also be twin-linked fusion blasters, and a shield drone.
• Commander Arra'kon, a Tau born in the Enclaves who served as supreme military commander during Farsight's hermetic absence. An expert strategist, and damned good in a fight, especially against infantry. He pilots an Enforcer battlesuit armed with a plasma rifle, a cyclic ion blaster, an airbursting fragmentation projector, and two gun drones.

Quotes

"Learn to shorten your reach! If your foe can come close enough to negate your striking power, all stratagem is lost, and when all stratagem is lost, the battle is lost." —Codex: Tau (3rd Edition)

“Each must find their own way. If those in our heartland had witnessed the savageries of the void as have we, they would know this. The hand of each of the great starfarers is turned against the other; none will join their strength together just to see their ancient enemies prosper. Neither should we." —Codex: Tau Empire (4th Edition)

"I've seen things you wouldn't believe—entire worlds in flames, chains of supernovas on the edge of nothingness, the great hole in space. I am changed, an outcast now..." —Codex: Tau Empire (6th Edition). Farsight IS Roy Batty now. Cranky old man voice much?

That's the fluff, here's the crunch

While popular fluff-wise even among non-Tau players for his badassery and generally cool backstory, Commander Farsight wasn't actually all that useful on the tabletop at first because he came with a shit ton of limitations, like no auxilaries, 0-1 tanks or Pathfinders and so on, and his massive bodyguard blob was too expensive and risky. The limitations got removed as of the 6th edition codex, however, and Farsight can now even bring Ethereals with him (even though fluff-wise Aun'Shi is the only Ethereal he'd associate with). On top of that, Farsight, along with his retinue of samurai—uh, I mean battlesuit aces, is now a beatstick. He can bring a unit of seven NINE (It's 7th ed Shas'la) non-scattering bodyguards with him and give them all meltas, plasma rifles and target locks to allow the squad to fire at several tanks with meltas or blast the enemy MEQs and TEQs on turn 2. Moreover, Farsight can now be taken in a game of any size. Although with 7th ed he isn't needed for a massive blob of mechas to rain from the sky, he merely provides the means of entry, and beacons can do the same already.

Farsight is one of very few Tau units who you actually want to be in an assault as opposed to shooting. So few everyone else will be hard pressed to keep up with him. His Tau-standard plasma rifle and BS5 are merely supplements meant to soften the enemy up before he charges in (or, rather, jetpacks in) to get to slicing and dicing with the Dawnblade, which is pretty easy with WS5, S5, I5 and 4 attacks. He's also pretty durable; basically a Space Marine captain with an extra wound: T4, W4, 3+ Save and a 4++ Invulnerable with his shield generator. Surprisingly, despite having a sword that eats souls and adds their would-be lifespan to Farsight's, he doesn't have eternal warrior. Leading to him getting his face smashed in by anything with Str 8. He's not meant to be a one-man (or one-Tau) badassery show, though; have him work together effectively with his elite battlesuit brethren for best results.

Additionally, The Tau Empire has a whole Farsight Enclaves Supplement now, where you can take battlesuits as Troops AND his own crazy retinue of special characters! Surprisingly, Farsight himself is rarely taken in Enclaves armies, mostly because his giant Crysis deathstar really benefits from the standard Tau relics systems.

It is also an official rule for this song to play every time Farsight enters combat.

See Also

• Tau Empire
• Tau Cadre
• Shadowsun
• The Damocles Crusade
• Commander Puretide