The Farsight Enclaves preview is here and boy has it dropped a bomb. Before we look at the moronic Commander restriction, let’s take a gander at what else the preview has offered us.

Both the melee relics (or signature systems) are attacks limited which make very little sense still. While Commanders have moderately high attacks, this could have been easily fixed by lowering their A number (we will get to obvious fixes in a minute) and would rarely be something used to make Tau “good” at combat (nor does it). Their limited attack profile makes them far less useful than initially considered though the Fusion Blades on a Farsight 4x Fusion Commander would be an added bonus if you are not taking any of the other really good ranged relics spoiled by rumours (so they could be wrong).

The Sept special rule itself is nothing special. Re-rolling 1’s to wound is no slouch but requires the Farsight unit to be within a 6″ range and only affects shooting attacks so be prepared to eat whatever unit(s) you are laying waste to the next turn unless that unit was isolated by itself. It certainly is not amiss but the range requirement limits its usefulness and overall impact. The best bet is of course close in units like the aforementioned 4x Fusion Commander and Breachers (though again, Vior’la with the free Advance seems better). Crisis Teams with three flamers really still remain ass unless there are other options we have not seen for them given the rumours currently stand that they cost the same.

Farsight getting shooting and melee buffs is nice but still a terrible option (without knowing if his other special rules have changed) given Commanders remain one of the most shooting efficient platforms in the game for HQs (from what we know) and he has one measly Plasma Rifle. Curious to see if his Plasma Rifle variant is his relic or something that’s available to everyone. If it’s a relic, that’s a big shame given that Tau plasma is also second tier compared to all their other weapon options (Missile Pods, Fusion Blasters and CIBs mainly) and of course imperial plasma (1D is poor). The Tau option here is of course their Ion weapons which look to have been improved though.

The Command and Control node Stratagem is the previous wargear in the form of a stratagem and is certainly a nice option but you are foregoing a decent chunk of strong shooting. The most obvious target here is a huge Crisis Suit squad, potentially making use of the rumoured +1 to hit Farsight Enclaves stratagem, or a Riptide where you can maximise the number of re-rolled wounds to account for the lost shooting. From an efficiency perspective though, it may otherwise not be the best option and once we have all the right numbers, will be pretty easy to crunch and determine. If there are other stratagems that could be combined for the Commander to give more benefits when foregoing shooting though, this could be more worthwhile.

Onto Commanders themselves then and the very silly restriction on one per detachment. This is a very poor choice by GW and IMO is a lazy band aid fix. Yes, Commander spam was a problem on many levels and needed to be addressed. Capping them at three for the army is not addressing it. Assuming no other significant changes (i.e. BS reduction or points hike) have been made, people are very likely still going to take three Commanders with four weapons so rather than solve the issue you have just limited it. You’ve reduced the wounds which is great, if you get access to a Commander now it’s a lot easier to kill them in one shot, but from the looks of things, nothing has been done to try and address this in any other way. BS reduction is one (and if both have been done *headdesk*). Points is another (if all three have been done *falls off chair with headache*). Capping at three weapons and allowing a support system is another. Edit: Different Commander levels as in previous editions could have worked as well. End Edit. Making Crisis Suits an actual decent unit without needing stratagems / buffs from other sources to be useful so you can actually access some of the best Tau weapons enmasse is a bloody obvious one. Fixing the game’s issues with characters in general would be another (just like fixing the game’s issues with stacking negative modifiers would be, too). Commander spam became a thing because the Index was quickly falling behind, Tau could not deal with multiple negatives to hit while Commander BS2+ really helped and Commanders were an amazingly efficient choice. Was it a competitive army? You could certainly place Top 8 in big tournaments but getting beyond that? Not a chance and it took a lot of skill to pilot that list to that point.

I am quite disappointed by this and not because I want to be able to run more than 3 Commanders but because it places a restriction on list building and creativity that was not needed, especially when Tau have only three non-Sept locked HQs unless the codex provides us something new, and there were other design choices that could have been explored.

Anyway, what’s done is done. Here is the Warhammer Community extract.

T’au Empire Preview: Farsight Enclaves