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Hi I have been playing Eldar quite a while now i have a friend that plays Tau. What is the best army (mechdar,footdar) to play against these anoying space communists. I am having a hard time dealing with tau and am unaware on how to play new eldar effectively . If there is anyone (eldar player or not) that can help me please do thanks (FYI i havent played at all with new eldar so I am a big noob with the new rules) Thanks

Some requirements:

Fire Prisms and Serpents. These units outrange most stuff in the game (except like IG Vanquishers, Manticores) but against Tau, they will help.

Believe it or not try to avoid assaulting Tau with Craftworldd Eldar. We have no assault vehicles, no units that can assault out of reserve and, we'll get shot to hell if we win too quickly in melee.

Some suggestions:

If Riptide uses the Nova Charge for 3++, ignore it unless it's your only target. T6 3++ is a waste of shots, even Meltas, whixh even wounding on 2s will still miss a few and waste the rest on 3++.

If Riptide is in range of stuff with Distort rule go for it, Insta-Kill on 6s does work. I've 1-shot Mephiston with like that.

If you can pour War Walker Brightlance fire into suits, you'll do good damage usually what with the AP2 and if they T4 then their 2 wounds might not mean much.

Oddly enough, with all the crazy suit stuff they can take the biggest threat to Eldar from Tau is their Fire Warriors. We have very few cheap infantry weapons that outrange them

Serpents are pretty tough for most armies to deal with. Tau can negate cover with markerlights pretty easily, but serpents are still tough. Which brings me to my next point- kill the pathfinders or anything with a markerlight. Markerlights make tau dead lethal and need to be silenced asap.

Riptides are thugs, so either kite them, ignore them or focus fire the hell out of them.

Shuriken weapons are a good way to deal with all suits, from crisis to ripitde. Mass rending fire will put the hurt on any of these. Ill second the use of D weapons against these targets.

If you can catch suits in assault, even with guardians, you will probably win and sweep them. Riptides are not fearless, and suck in CC. However, don't go in looking to get in assault, just if the opportunity arises.

Mech is generally better than foot, as tau have enough high S weapons to threaten Wraith units and mass dakka to gun down hordes.

Hi thanks guys Serling which shuriken weapons are rending i cant see them in the codex as rending also are reapers any good they look cool and got a few little buffs in the new dex are they worth getting as a HS choice, also what should i do for a HQ against Tau any suggestions thanks


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Found the rending bit dw

Reapers are awesome if you can protect them but any opponent with a force that relies on heavy infantry will come after them hard

Cast guide on the Reapers or cast Doom on their target and they slaughterhouse those fools

For HQ choices, I use a Farseer as warlord and put an Autarch with a warp jump generator with some Warp Spiders to do some deep strike assassinating

Eldar are awesome

Beating Tau is tough right now. Their codex is pretty powerful and they completely ignore a lot of the tricks that Eldar rely on.

Step 1: Sacrafice either 10 goats or 1 virgin to the Random Dice Gods for first turn
Step 2: Fire Everything at his markerlights until they are all gone
Step 3: It is now a fair fight. Enjoy.

I've found in my few encounters that wasting shots on the marker lights are exactly what the Tau player wants. I have had more success just killing off the suits or whatever is causing the actual damage. Who cares if he ignores cover on me if his guns can't hurt me. I'm sure this is opponent specific and not every Tau player is bringing the same list (which is adding to the difficulty of defining - how to beat tau), but it has worked for me in my meta.

 BustyBadger wrote:
which shuriken weapons are rending i cant see them in the codex as rending

None of them are Rending.

It really depends on the tau list.

We have units that are very good against them and some that aren't if they are castling, your going to have to get into range with d-scythes, barrage with spinners/artillery, or outshoot them with waveserpents. Wraithknights are very good against suits, both thier guns and their assaulting are ap2 str 10 so you insta death suits.

Accross the pond in the UK the top eldar lists are wave serpent spam 2-3 wraithknights and a skyshield for a 4++. Tau have a hard time dealing with 4-5 serpents 2-3 knights and having an invo save.

Nightspinners. Again the unsung heros of the new codex. Burns out pathfinders and Kroot, Instakills suits even when hiding with JSJ and can even put a dent in marker drone squads (Disc'O fm usually) as it'll wound everything it touches on a 2+ and even though it doesn't ignore their save unless it rends their armour save is not great. You're also hitting side armour automatically on all vehicles under the template @ S8. They're also pinning and Tau have terible Ld and hate being forced to take Ld tests.

You can do all this (except for the burning bit. That you do later once the Suits and other threats are toast) while hiding. The Tau don't have any weapons that ignore LOS with enough S to harm you, meaning that he HAS to come to you. Tau hate artillery. Artillery and deepstrikers getting up in their grill.

When he comes to you, you smack him about with your counterpunching, mobile but short ranged aspect warriors and Wraithguard. Also, get some deepstriker in amongst them. Swooping Hawks are excellent because they don't scatter and Spiders hit like a ton of bricks. You can also run into cover/ out of LOS after shooting with them.

You basically use their own doctrine of patient hunter/ killing blow against them but with more zoom, zoom, zoom.

Outrange them with Serpent shields, while we don't have too much shooting outside of 36', neither to Tau. And they don't have the mobility to catch us.

Get your wraithknight threatening the Riptides.

Swooping Hawks love Tau. T3 means their Lasblasters can goto work, S4 AP4 Ignores cover is ideal for taking out Pathfinders/Firewarriors. Get an exarch with a sunrifle, I2 means that stuff will get blinded. Then the Hawks can actually assault and win.

And yeah, i'm gonna have to get me a Nightspinner.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 BustyBadger wrote:
which shuriken weapons are rending i cant see them in the codex as rending

None of them are Rending.

If you want to be a smartass, the least you can do is straighten the facts.

Shuriken catapults and Shuriken cannons are not rending, they get Bladestorm special rule which is like rending, except it only works on things with a Tougness value, so no vehicles. If you roll a 6 on to-wound, you get AP2 and wound anything regardless of toughness, just like rending.

Wow thanks soo much guys this helps a bunch he usually takes many battlsuit squads with shield drones a riptide a couple of hammer heads and pathfinders he doesnt use kroot or many fire warriors.I do like the idea of the night spinner and the hawks never used them before the blind is nice. Also the reapers sound good 36'' range is pretty cool especially with physic buffs. Thanks again

Well i battled Tau twice, once at an RTT. Both times Tau got almost tabled against my Serpent spam army. You need to get into range quickly and eliminate all Pathfinders asap. Them. You can pick Tau apart with a proper target priority schedule. If the enemy fields a Riptide ignore it first.

The Night Spinner has earned a permanent place in my competitive lists. Unsung hero indeed. That thing has been impacting everytime I have used it. I even had it deviate off of the fire warriors and onto the iriduim armor wearing commander, so promptly failed all saves and was killed. beautiful.

If you can ignore a riptide then your opponent isnt playing it propperly imho



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If you can ignore a riptide then your opponent isnt playing it propperly imho

Riptides without markerlights are only BS 3 and don't ignore cover. It's a single S8 large blast.

It's the crisis suits/broadsides and the markerlights that are going to take down your skimmers.

I personally play an Taudar or Eldau combination list. I can say this, you dont have to kill the riptide, i will hurt all game long, but not as much as you wasting your fire to kill it if you arent properly equipped to do so. I personally put FNP on mine and a 5+ 5+ is basically ignoring 1/2 the wounds you put on it, not to mention if your shots are not ap2. So kill their troop choices, take the objectives and use serpent spam to make use of ignore cover/ pinning on those pesky low leadership troops. I have also make broadsides run off the board quite easily with killing a few drones. You need to maximize your movement phase in order to deploy smartly and try to keep your weak units out of sight until your serpents can remove those threats. Also you can use war walkers to spam the crap out of bright lances on the riptides, they will go down to those weapons as long as your at full strength and guided. Use your move/shoot/moveback abilit to keep them safer.

If you have the forgeworld model, the Warphunter is also fantastic. 36" wound on 2+ AP2 large blast can sow some fear, and if they drop nearby you can always use the template version and ignore the cover saves too.