Farsight

All those moments in time lost, like tears in the rain.

Shas'O Vior'la Shovah Kais Mont'yr, who, like all Tau, has the longest name in the freaking world, is the closest thing the Tau have to a stone-cold grimdark badass.

That's why he broke away from the Empire and became an exile.

He is also A CHAR.

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

He used to be the greatest general of the Tau race, killing orks out on the frontier, and earning the name O'Shovah or Commander Farsight for his tactical genius. However, he also began to become embittered as the Ethereals failed again and again to back up his assertions that the Tau, armed as they were with plasma-coilgun sniper rifle-machine guns, must also figure out how to fight in close combat.

In short, Farsight knew what universe they were living in, even if his rulers didn't.

During this time, he came across the Dawn Blade.

The Dawn Blade

Okay, how best to put this...Nobody knows what the fuck this thing is. He found it on the burned out husk of an artefact world that had once been cleansed of Chaotic influence by the SPEHSS MEHREENS. However, it had been covered in alien ruins before humanity even got there to corrupt it.

So, it could be anything. Everybody's got a different opinion:

Is it a Daemon Weapon, keeping him alive even as it perverts his will? Then again, the Tau are immune to the influences of the warp (depending on how canon Fire Warrior is, anyway), so it's unlikely. "Resistance" is not the same thing as "immunity", which the novelization of Fire Warrior actually demonstrates. It might still be dangerous, just of a more slow and subtle nature...

Is it a C'tan Phase Blade, further reinforcing any connections the Tau have to the Necrons?

Is it Anaris, the Sword of Dawnlight that Vaul once forged for Khaine, and has been lost since ol' Bloody Handed went all to pieces?

Is it a master-crafted sword made by either a Space Marine chapter, the Inquisition, or a long-forgotten alien race?

Who knows? Farsight doesn't. All he knows is that the thing glows like a lightsaber, is about as long as he is tall, and cuts through tank armor like butter. Rather than try to figure out what it was, he just thought that it was a good idea to bolt it to the arm of his Crisis suit and use it to rip the shit out of anything that opposes him. Fuck yeah.

Gotta Go Your Own Way

Shortly after going into retirement in disgust over being abandoned to hold the line against an ork horde with no support, the Imperium of Man began the Damocles Crusade to wipe the Tau out. He was called out of retirement to aid the defense, then sent off on the humiliatingly un-badass assignment of reclaiming lost colonies for the greater good while other, less awesome men were sent to deal with Hive Fleet Behemoth.

After all their Ethereals died in an accident (which may or may not have also been an "accident"... look, it's the Tau, get used to ambiguity), Farsight had had enough. Giving the entire Tau Empire the old ten gun salute, he set up his own set of heavily-fortified worlds on the edges of Tau space, and works to remove his people from Ethereal control.

Occupation

Nobody knows. (Getting tired of hearing that yet?)

Seriously, everything about him's a mystery these days.

He's supposedly still alive after three-hundred years when the average Tau is lucky to hit fifty-five. How's he do it? New technology? Daemonic possession? Necron/C'tan influence? Have there been many Farsights, with a new one taking up the old's mantle and title like the Dread Pirate Roberts? Does he just eat right and exercise?

Is he still fighting for the greater good? Has he uncovered some sort of dark, shameful secret the Ethereals are hiding from the Tau at large, and rebelling against them over that? Is he an agent of Chaos? Is he trying to develop a system of personal choice apart from Ethereal Ambiguous Mind Control™? Or is he just mad at them for refusing to see that the only path to dominance is a grimdark one?

Does anyone know? Do the fluff-illiterate even care?

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)

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, Commander Farsight wasn't actually all that useful on the tabletop.

Previously he came with shittonn of limitations like no auxilaries, 0-1 tanks and pathfinders and so on, and his massive bodyguard blob was too expencive and risky.

The limitations got removed with 6th edition codex and Farsight can now even bring ethereals with him. On top of that Farsight is now a rapetrain. He can bring a unit of seven never scattering bodyguards with him and give them all meltas, missile pods, one extra system (as target lock now auto-include) and equip one suit with cheesy signature systems to make entire squad twinlinked, ignore cover, and hit and run to ruyn the day of anything from mass-mech to blobguard.

Farsight can now be taken in a game of any size. However, there are plenty updated Spess Mehreens on the way to rape even more under powered xeno face.