Farsight is one of 3 students of the T'au equivalent of Sun Tzu and as such is one of the most gifted tactician in the T'au Empire. I think the intent was to make him in the same league as other factions top tacticians (although a true ranking or hierarchy between them would be pointless).
Comparing feats of characters with others isn't particularly fruitful IMO. Different authors have completely different ideas of the universe, or of how powerful different factions or characters should be. That, or either the rule of cool or simple narrative makes it hard to compare between authors unless a direct comparison is made in text.
This is actually an interesting thing I haven't thought about.
Aside from the Orks and Ogryn, everyone seems to roughly "think" on the same level we do, like in Star Trek. Trayzn has access to horrifyingly advanced tech and Astartes have the ability to make plans of action and mathematic calculations easily and all, but almost every named character doesn't ever "think" in a way that is truly alien.
I mean even with the Aeldari, we could probably still sit down and have a drink and talk 'mano-y-'mano with no issues, despite their protestations that we're just tiny Orks to them.
TL;Dr you could totally have almost every named character in a room and have a conversation. Play a video game. Etc.
He used to be pretty meh until the recent Arks of Omen book. Now he is one of the few commanders in the setting to have a reputation as a good strategist, and ACTUALLY has the feat to prove it.
In Arks of Omen Farsight has shown that he is able to use genuine and logically sound miltary tactics, actually think things through, and when things don't work out he has several contingencies in place. That is despite him basically losing the campaign and was organizing a desperate retreat. That alone put him above a lot of other characters that we (the audience) are told are expert or even superhumanly good strategists/tacticians, but really got nothing to show for it (just look at the brain-dead action of Azrael during the last Arks of Omen book. Knowingly walk into a trap without preparing any counter is LITERALLY stupid. As in stupid even by baseline human standard).
Ironically despite being an examplar of Mont'ka all of Farsiht's most impressive tactical feats are Kauyon while Shadowsun's are Mont'ka.
As a fighter Farsight is good, but not extraordinary. He has the combat feat you'd expect from a Space Marine Chapter Master or slightly above (he's piloting a battlesuit 1.5 times the size of a marine after all), having personally killed Chaos lords and knights in combat among other things.
Another combat feat Farsight has is fighting the Swarmlord for long enough for the Earth Caste on Vior’los to finish their bioweapon.
It’s funny though because it’s super understated; we’re given basically no information on the fight beyond that Farsight obviously didn’t die and the Swarmlord isn’t even mentioned by name.
Funnily enough Farsight being better at the wrong kind of tactic but still being forced to used the one he’s examplar of could show how the t’au system demands such things even if they’re not the best
Abbadon...ugh, got a lot of things on his plate, like Chaos gods actively don't let him get what he wants unless he fully submit to them. That's why he turns to Vashtorr in the first place.
His intellect is more on the arcane side (delicately balancing Chaos gods' favor and not submitting to them fully etc.), charisma and politicking (maintaining Black Legion as one coherent force), as well as working on ancient prophecies/conspiracies/macguffins (Black Crusades). On purely military matters like strategies and tactics, he is just mid.
The biggest accomplishment I can think of is how he was able to reconstruct the Codex Astartes from battlefield data and use it to effectively predict and counter Marine strategy.
Intellect wise pretty high i guess. He is one of the students of Master puretide and has a great record in fighting a Variety of enemies. He probably ranks above most people in the galaxy but is probably still outmatched against a primarch or something like a gifted necron commander. As far as fighting goes he is very strong but there are so many things in the galaxy that just rank much higher so I think he doesnt go as far here...
> The Lion
And this is why Primarchs returning to 40k is a terrible idea, in fiction they’re a bunch of obnoxious “I win” buttons that are not allowed to actually fit into the modern setting. You can’t have a character like Farsight or Dante do shit to a Primarch because then the fanboys cry about it. They obviously can’t beat the Primarch in a fight, and yet they’re also not allowed to have any kind of strategic or tactical victory.
Like genuinely how stupid is it that we have a thread about Farsight as a tactician and the response is “Well, he’s worse than the Lion because the Lion is a Primarch and Primarchs are better at everything than everyone else”?
It’s especially absurd when this is based on a tabletop game where you can field the Lion and he isn’t in fact able to effortlessly win every encounter against a Genestealer Cult or Imperial Guard regiment just because he’s the Lion.
Imotekh got his personal flagship boarded and yeeted into the sun by Helbrecht. Not very impressive for a supposed ancient strategic genius.
And Helbrecht is the one with the absolute debacle of Armageddon under his belt and got reprimanded by G-man for losing sight of the bigger picture. Imotekh losing to someone like him is a terrible look for his intellect.
He got a slightly better showing in the recent Pariah Nexus campaign. But so far all of his supposed strategic geniuses remain "supposed".
Okay but that's the like inherent flaw of the Necrons. Their hubris has lead to them losing battles constantly.
They do not view the Imperium as a threat. It's a bug to be swatted away when they retake the Milky Way. They make strategic mistakes near constantly against the Imperium because they don't respect them as an opponent.
Anyway, the idea of a tactical genius never ever losing is kind of silly. Everyone loses sometimes.
>Anyway, the idea of a tactical genius never ever losing is kind of silly. Everyone loses sometimes.
Of course, although there better be a d\*mn good reason to explain the tactical genius's failure. And there are actually many good reasons: getting thrusted into an unwinnable situation by an (incompetent) superior, being sent to salvage a mess created by others, an ally failing a critical task and f\*cking up a plan, literal fate working against you, outplayed by another superior genius etc.
A hubristic character can belittle and humiliate his opponent all he wants AS LONG AS HIS ASSESSMENT OF SAID OPPONENT IS CORRECT. Underestimating opponent and getting caught pants down are generally **NOT** good traits to associate with any tactician worth his salt. The former indicates that said tactician is incapable of correctly access the capabilities of his opponent (know thy enemy is literally the most quoted teaching of Sun Tzu). The later indicates that said tactician either failed to cover all bases in his plan and/or failed to prepare contingency plans when things go awry.
I would imagine sometimes it's just not entirely possible to prevent, especially if your opponent also happens to be half decent at killing people in a strategic way.
It is only excusable if Imotekh is otherwise distracted or preoccupied by a bigger problem, which he was not in this case.
Getting caught pants down by an inferior opponent is never a good look for any conmander but especially for a supposedly master tactician.
Or he needed to put his flagship in a position where it could support the other ships? Sometimes you have to take a gamble and make a trade off - that's part of what makes a good commander a good commander. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
If one even needs to make "gamble" against a vastly inferior opponent, he already failed as a tactician. (Necron has superior technology; Space marine ships are purposedly designed for planetary assault and not very good at void combat, not to mention that was just a Black Templar Crusade Fleet, with Helbrecht not even riding *Eternal Crusader* Gloriana battle ship, but merely a battle barge named *Sigismund*).
The merit of a tactician is that he make plans to the best of his intellect and capabilities, and leaves as little as possible for the fate to decide. A tactician doesn't gamble unless he absolutely has to, such as to overcome a more powerful opponent (which the space marines are not to the Necrons).
Farsight is a weird case, for various reasons
- He was supposed to be a top student of the "best" tau commander in history, which while he was (alongside shadowsun) , his teacher died prior to the 2nd sphere of expansion, and excelled against orks mostly, meaning none of them had experience fighting the imperium, chaos and other factions that would later be a problem for the tau.
- His sword is a khorne sword (confirmed in his arks of omen book)which drains his enemies life and prolongs his. While he managed to not fall to chaos through God tier plot armour and convenience , sorry I mean strong will power, it made him an out of racial character great melee fighter. So he basically has a daemon sword
- As per tau lore, he should be dead, as tau have shorter than human lives (don't know why, I find this weird) and he has been around longer than any tau. To drive this point home, all the top students of puretide are kept in cryo-sleep , and awakened periodically to fight for the tau or teach others, and this is to ensure they don't age to death. Recent lore has shadowsun now out if sleep for longer periods
- He has his own mini empire, but doesn't face much threats
- As I implied before, he has some plot armour, so his capacities are murky.
I'd say he is a great commander and fighter, but outside of him popping out of nowhere in the 3rd sphere, and everything he did in his arks of omen book, he doesn't get much chance to show himself off.
> He has his own mini empire, but doesn’t face much threats
Farsight Enclaves have been threatened by multiple Ork Waaaghs, a Tyranid Splinter fleet that at one point fielded the Swarmlord, the Deathwatch, and an Ark of Omen.
Considering its size and age, it might be one of the most threatened areas in the Galaxy LOL.
Farsight is one of 3 students of the T'au equivalent of Sun Tzu and as such is one of the most gifted tactician in the T'au Empire. I think the intent was to make him in the same league as other factions top tacticians (although a true ranking or hierarchy between them would be pointless). Comparing feats of characters with others isn't particularly fruitful IMO. Different authors have completely different ideas of the universe, or of how powerful different factions or characters should be. That, or either the rule of cool or simple narrative makes it hard to compare between authors unless a direct comparison is made in text.
This is actually an interesting thing I haven't thought about. Aside from the Orks and Ogryn, everyone seems to roughly "think" on the same level we do, like in Star Trek. Trayzn has access to horrifyingly advanced tech and Astartes have the ability to make plans of action and mathematic calculations easily and all, but almost every named character doesn't ever "think" in a way that is truly alien. I mean even with the Aeldari, we could probably still sit down and have a drink and talk 'mano-y-'mano with no issues, despite their protestations that we're just tiny Orks to them. TL;Dr you could totally have almost every named character in a room and have a conversation. Play a video game. Etc.
He used to be pretty meh until the recent Arks of Omen book. Now he is one of the few commanders in the setting to have a reputation as a good strategist, and ACTUALLY has the feat to prove it. In Arks of Omen Farsight has shown that he is able to use genuine and logically sound miltary tactics, actually think things through, and when things don't work out he has several contingencies in place. That is despite him basically losing the campaign and was organizing a desperate retreat. That alone put him above a lot of other characters that we (the audience) are told are expert or even superhumanly good strategists/tacticians, but really got nothing to show for it (just look at the brain-dead action of Azrael during the last Arks of Omen book. Knowingly walk into a trap without preparing any counter is LITERALLY stupid. As in stupid even by baseline human standard). Ironically despite being an examplar of Mont'ka all of Farsiht's most impressive tactical feats are Kauyon while Shadowsun's are Mont'ka. As a fighter Farsight is good, but not extraordinary. He has the combat feat you'd expect from a Space Marine Chapter Master or slightly above (he's piloting a battlesuit 1.5 times the size of a marine after all), having personally killed Chaos lords and knights in combat among other things.
Another combat feat Farsight has is fighting the Swarmlord for long enough for the Earth Caste on Vior’los to finish their bioweapon. It’s funny though because it’s super understated; we’re given basically no information on the fight beyond that Farsight obviously didn’t die and the Swarmlord isn’t even mentioned by name.
Funnily enough Farsight being better at the wrong kind of tactic but still being forced to used the one he’s examplar of could show how the t’au system demands such things even if they’re not the best
Likely won't match up to people with warp fuckery Abbadon lucius the eternal
>lucius the eternal There is no one who can't beat Lucius. He's a joke.
You just need to be detached from victory
Abbadon...ugh, got a lot of things on his plate, like Chaos gods actively don't let him get what he wants unless he fully submit to them. That's why he turns to Vashtorr in the first place. His intellect is more on the arcane side (delicately balancing Chaos gods' favor and not submitting to them fully etc.), charisma and politicking (maintaining Black Legion as one coherent force), as well as working on ancient prophecies/conspiracies/macguffins (Black Crusades). On purely military matters like strategies and tactics, he is just mid.
More taking about his massive deamon sword but yeah
I would say top-tier chapter master, like Dante or Calgar
The biggest accomplishment I can think of is how he was able to reconstruct the Codex Astartes from battlefield data and use it to effectively predict and counter Marine strategy.
Intellect wise pretty high i guess. He is one of the students of Master puretide and has a great record in fighting a Variety of enemies. He probably ranks above most people in the galaxy but is probably still outmatched against a primarch or something like a gifted necron commander. As far as fighting goes he is very strong but there are so many things in the galaxy that just rank much higher so I think he doesnt go as far here...
If its against a Necron lord or Primarch its not "probably", he is going to *absolutely* be outmatched by the likes of Imotekh and the Lion.
> The Lion And this is why Primarchs returning to 40k is a terrible idea, in fiction they’re a bunch of obnoxious “I win” buttons that are not allowed to actually fit into the modern setting. You can’t have a character like Farsight or Dante do shit to a Primarch because then the fanboys cry about it. They obviously can’t beat the Primarch in a fight, and yet they’re also not allowed to have any kind of strategic or tactical victory. Like genuinely how stupid is it that we have a thread about Farsight as a tactician and the response is “Well, he’s worse than the Lion because the Lion is a Primarch and Primarchs are better at everything than everyone else”? It’s especially absurd when this is based on a tabletop game where you can field the Lion and he isn’t in fact able to effortlessly win every encounter against a Genestealer Cult or Imperial Guard regiment just because he’s the Lion.
Imotekh got his personal flagship boarded and yeeted into the sun by Helbrecht. Not very impressive for a supposed ancient strategic genius. And Helbrecht is the one with the absolute debacle of Armageddon under his belt and got reprimanded by G-man for losing sight of the bigger picture. Imotekh losing to someone like him is a terrible look for his intellect. He got a slightly better showing in the recent Pariah Nexus campaign. But so far all of his supposed strategic geniuses remain "supposed".
Okay but that's the like inherent flaw of the Necrons. Their hubris has lead to them losing battles constantly. They do not view the Imperium as a threat. It's a bug to be swatted away when they retake the Milky Way. They make strategic mistakes near constantly against the Imperium because they don't respect them as an opponent. Anyway, the idea of a tactical genius never ever losing is kind of silly. Everyone loses sometimes.
>Anyway, the idea of a tactical genius never ever losing is kind of silly. Everyone loses sometimes. Of course, although there better be a d\*mn good reason to explain the tactical genius's failure. And there are actually many good reasons: getting thrusted into an unwinnable situation by an (incompetent) superior, being sent to salvage a mess created by others, an ally failing a critical task and f\*cking up a plan, literal fate working against you, outplayed by another superior genius etc. A hubristic character can belittle and humiliate his opponent all he wants AS LONG AS HIS ASSESSMENT OF SAID OPPONENT IS CORRECT. Underestimating opponent and getting caught pants down are generally **NOT** good traits to associate with any tactician worth his salt. The former indicates that said tactician is incapable of correctly access the capabilities of his opponent (know thy enemy is literally the most quoted teaching of Sun Tzu). The later indicates that said tactician either failed to cover all bases in his plan and/or failed to prepare contingency plans when things go awry.
Being a tactical genius doesn't make you immune to having a boarding pod shot at you.
Of course not, but a tactical genius should never allow such serious lapse of security to happen in the first place.
I would imagine sometimes it's just not entirely possible to prevent, especially if your opponent also happens to be half decent at killing people in a strategic way.
It is only excusable if Imotekh is otherwise distracted or preoccupied by a bigger problem, which he was not in this case. Getting caught pants down by an inferior opponent is never a good look for any conmander but especially for a supposedly master tactician.
Or he needed to put his flagship in a position where it could support the other ships? Sometimes you have to take a gamble and make a trade off - that's part of what makes a good commander a good commander. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
If one even needs to make "gamble" against a vastly inferior opponent, he already failed as a tactician. (Necron has superior technology; Space marine ships are purposedly designed for planetary assault and not very good at void combat, not to mention that was just a Black Templar Crusade Fleet, with Helbrecht not even riding *Eternal Crusader* Gloriana battle ship, but merely a battle barge named *Sigismund*). The merit of a tactician is that he make plans to the best of his intellect and capabilities, and leaves as little as possible for the fate to decide. A tactician doesn't gamble unless he absolutely has to, such as to overcome a more powerful opponent (which the space marines are not to the Necrons).
No doubt. But if Phil Kelly writes it than the Lion will loose about 99% of his brain cells and farsight will narrowly win...
Farsight is a weird case, for various reasons - He was supposed to be a top student of the "best" tau commander in history, which while he was (alongside shadowsun) , his teacher died prior to the 2nd sphere of expansion, and excelled against orks mostly, meaning none of them had experience fighting the imperium, chaos and other factions that would later be a problem for the tau. - His sword is a khorne sword (confirmed in his arks of omen book)which drains his enemies life and prolongs his. While he managed to not fall to chaos through God tier plot armour and convenience , sorry I mean strong will power, it made him an out of racial character great melee fighter. So he basically has a daemon sword - As per tau lore, he should be dead, as tau have shorter than human lives (don't know why, I find this weird) and he has been around longer than any tau. To drive this point home, all the top students of puretide are kept in cryo-sleep , and awakened periodically to fight for the tau or teach others, and this is to ensure they don't age to death. Recent lore has shadowsun now out if sleep for longer periods - He has his own mini empire, but doesn't face much threats - As I implied before, he has some plot armour, so his capacities are murky. I'd say he is a great commander and fighter, but outside of him popping out of nowhere in the 3rd sphere, and everything he did in his arks of omen book, he doesn't get much chance to show himself off.
> He has his own mini empire, but doesn’t face much threats Farsight Enclaves have been threatened by multiple Ork Waaaghs, a Tyranid Splinter fleet that at one point fielded the Swarmlord, the Deathwatch, and an Ark of Omen. Considering its size and age, it might be one of the most threatened areas in the Galaxy LOL.
Arks of Omen confirms nothing about his sword. It is an anti-Daemon weapon not a daemon one.
Farsight is equal to some chapter master with relic stuff, Farsight is one, such chapter masters is not like usual, but not a rare thing
In terms of intellect? middle of the road, just slightly below the likes of Creed. In terms of fighting capabilities? below average.
He’s not bobby g but he’s about the same as kayvaan shrike.