Walsh introduced a generalisation of Faber polynomials to certain compact sets which need not be connected. We derive several equivalent representations of these Faber-Walsh polynomials, analogous to representations of Faber polynomials. Some simple asymptotic properties of the Faber-Walsh polynomials on the complement of the compact set are established. We further show that suitably normalised Faber-Walsh polynomials are asymptotically optimal polynomials in the sense of [Eiermann and Niethammer 1983].