Character show down... Which One to Bring?

[Carrelio]

Hey everyone, my local GW is having a Christmas event day this weekend.  One of the events (well actually 3 of them... 1 for each game system) is a fight pit.
The rules are simple.  Pick a special HQ or upgrade character worth 300 points or less, and pit him against every other competitors special character all at once on a 4'x4' board.  Terrain will be placed by the staff.
So now I have a difficult choice... who to bring?

I am going to support my Tau roots, since I know I will be the only one who would think of bringing them, in which case my character choices are...
The no armour saves allowed goodness of, Farsight?
The mistress of stealth, Shadowsun?
The space pope!?

So what do you guys think?  Who would be the best option for a pit fight with 20 or so other characters?  Despite this being a fun event I know the people who will be participating very well... and I predict I will be fighting off the most power-gamy single characters they can get their hands on... so what's my best option here?

[DEF Knight]

if you wanted to be annoying I'd say bring Celestine and laugh as she just keeps getting back up.

However, if you're committed to Tau I'd think a custom tooled Crisis Commander. If it has to be a special character Shadow Sun is your best bet between her invulnerable save, mobility, offensive punch, and shield drones. That said, I'd still think a Crisis Commander with access to gun or shield drones (take your pick), FNP, 4++ invul, hit and run, plenty of mobility, and long range, hard hitting weapons is your best bet. There likely won't be too many threats outside of 24", so if you can kite hard you should do ok. you'll probably be seen as low target priority. Take out anything that could run or shoot you down, and you're golden.

Your real issue is what precisely to take. you can't take two weapons, a shield generator, and vectored retro thrusters all at once. You can take three of those four. You have to decide what drones to take, and you have to decide which weapons to take.

My suggestion is pick three of:
Plasma Rifle or Missile Pod. (ap2 vs. staying outside of 24")
Shield Generator and/or Vectored Retro Thrusters (invul save vs. not getting caught in combat)

Then take hardwired drone controller with:
Gun, Shield, or Marker Drones (depending on your needs)

hard wired Target Lock and Multi Traker (if taking multiple weapons)
hard wired Blacksun Filter
Stimulant Injector
Ejection System (might as well. maybe youll get lucky and survive as a pilot!)
Iridium Armour (you may or may not want this. it'll bump up your save, but your 2D6 thrust move will become D6. I'd hazard against it, myself, considering all of your other, many, delicious saves available)

looking at it all written down, I would suggest Missle Pod/Shield Generator/Vectored Thrusters and a pair of Marker Drones. You'll be all but untouchable, all but uncatchable, and low-enough damage that most wont be coming after you until late in the game! If you wanted to be more offensively focused I'd drop the Vectored Thrusters for a Plasma Rifle and pick up the Multitracker, but beware you're a bigger target that's going to be idling quite a bit closer in that case.

[Carrelio]

Sadly it does appear that it has to be a special character, so I can't make my own (or I would have, since a regular Shas'O can be just as good if not better as either of our special characters).

I originally jumped straight to Shadowsun too, since she's always getting at the worst a 4+ save and at best a 2+, and she has the 3 drones to keep her safe.  But the issue there is that once she gets caught up in combat (which I will try to avoid but with 20 other people will be hard to put off indefinitely... especially since she's only got 12" range) she's done for.

Farsight on the other hand ignores armour in CC, and his gun does have a better maximum range... but he'll score less hits with that gun, and against anything higher than T4 he'll be scoring less wounds too...

I think Shadowsun imay be the right choice here...

[Chicop76]

I would go with O'Shova.

1. He get to re roll range and melee hits against Orcs
2. Harder to instant kill than Shadow Sun
3. You can actual fight in combat in case you get stuck in combat
4. Longer range
5. The only Tau with a power weapon

I done something like this before. I never finished it, but the Doom of Malarti, the named Bloodthirster, Abbadon just to name a few did really well. I would say bring the Doom out while it put sevral wounds on the other player and earn up to 10. It can be instant killed however, yet getting past a +3 invulnerable is still hard to do.

[The Man They Call Jayne]

Ahhh Character Assassination. I love this game. I take a Chaos SC usually. Abbadon, Ahriman or Lucuis. Although is someone brings Eldrad Ahriman is usally messed up.

Byt if you are definatly going Tau, Farsight is the only one worth taking. Shadowsun is only T3 and need to be within 12inches of the Target.

[Arguleon-veq]

Deffo Farsight.

I think Lysander is a big pick to win in these kind of things.

[Carrelio]

I think I will pick Farsight for the T4, and 24" range.

[Carrelio]

Well... that did not go well at all... Probably pretty typical of what you'd expect of Tau characters against other characters.
The baord was set up with super super heavy terrain, so I decided to go with Shadowsun for the constant 2+ cover save.
Other characters included Typhus, Abaddon, Draigo, Imotekh, Canis Wolfborn, Fateweaver, Straken, and Mephiston.  We each got 3 lives, and we each rolled to randomly organize which part of the table would be our spawn point for the game.
I spawned between Fateweaver (on my right) and Mephiston (on my left).
Turn 1, the guy playing Mephiston didn't notice Shadowsun (who I was hiding in a building), so he went to kill Straken instead (now at the center of the board)..  I moved Shadowsun into the space where Mephiston had started... then Mephiston lost combat to Straken and respawned right on top of Shadowsun, butchering her in 1 shot.
I respawned and went the other way towards where fateweaver had been (he had since entered fly mode and had become unkillable to everyone because no one had skyfire). Unfortunately, the person who had begun next to him was Abaddon, who respawned, walked over, and killed Shadowsun...
I respawned again, and by this point everyone realized Fateweaver had to be stopped, so we allied together to stop him.  Shadowsun actually landed a wound... a caused Fateweaver to crash... but then got betrayed by Mephiston who charged her instead of the downed Fateweaver, killing her instantly for a second time.
So that's that.  I landed a wound, but didn't kill anything oh well.

[Chicop76]

O'Shova has higher strength, initiative, and a power weapon plus an inuvulnerable save with longer shooting range.

Fateweaver is more than 300 points. Only way killing that is to knock him down, lower leader ship, than causing at least on wound.

If I was playing Fatew weaver I would had kept turning you into a chaos spawn to bypass your +2 cover save.

Most special characters are melee, and as you can see that +2 cover really didn't help you. That being said O'Shova wouldn't had fared well against those three chracters.

The Doom of Malarti would had done well in that game. It can kill Mephiston and do ok against Abbadon as long as you make your saves.

[Carrelio]

At 333 Fateweaver was deemed close enough that they let him in (it was a fun event, not meant to be competitive).

I wondered if I hadn't made the wrong choice when everybody showed up with close combat characters, so shooting wasn't really a thing and the cover save was moot, however, on the other end of the equation, BS4 S6 meant that for the most part Farsight would have been 3's to hit and 3's to wound with shooting rather than Shadowsun's 2's in both.  Both have a 4+ invuln, and Shadowsun (if you include her drones in the calculation) has more overall wounds... the only trouble is that it didn't matter how many wounds she had since she kept being munched by instant death or an avalanche of attacks... but I do agree, in hindsight, Shadowsun was a worse choice than Farsight...
However, Farsight would have lost just as badly in the end, since he's still not keeping up with Mephiston, or Abaddon in combat anyways.