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Ok so heres the deal I mainly play my Space Marine army and I usually have no huge problems with other armies that is until I play an Eldar/ Dark Eldar or Tau army.

I have beaten Tau by luck alone on occasion but Eldar continue to be my constant nemesis and I have yet to even gain a draw against them.

Part of the problem is that these two armies are usually played by very skilled players and the other is most deffinantly my lack of experiance.

So I am looking to get any tips on stratigy, tactics and or units to use and how best to deal with them the more in depth the better.

Thanks in advance.

Can we have a description of your army, his/her/eldar/tau army and mission and terrain?

Take drop pods with Sternguard and combi meltas, always choose 2nd turn.

sourclams wrote:Take drop pods with Sternguard and combi meltas, always choose 2nd turn.

yea... this is good... but I think he wants a bit more on how to use them first... :p

Play Tyranids? I beat the crap out of Tau everytime I fight them. They're tasty...

A list would be nice, but anything you can get into CC with them helps such as assault marines.

Mattlov wrote:A list would be nice, but anything you can get into CC with them helps such as assault marines.

That's not entirely accurate. A number of CC dedicated elements in the Eldar's list tend to beat the pants off of Marines. Avoid melee with Harlies, Banshees, Shining Spears on the charge, and Wraithguard. The first three will pants you due to their ability to ignore your armor with every attack (potentially) if your squad has been lit up with the Doom Psychic Power and the latter will neuter your offensive capacity with their T6 and 3+ sv.

Hug cover to provide saves against their heavier weapons, target Dark Reapers and Fire PRisms with everything you've got, consider taking a Librarian to pull troops out of close combat if you DO get charged, and drop pods make mech eldar cry. I'd run a dread or two in Pods with Multimelta to swat down annoying transports (or at least require those transports to move before their troopers disembark, preventing a charge that turn) I'd also consider going vehicle light. And leave those Land Raiders at home (though this last should go without saying, still it is important enough to warrant a mention)

Never played against Dark Eldar but i do play them my self, and i'll let you know a few of the problems i see armies that face me have.

Big tanks are worthless with the absurd amount of dark lances and blaster that any Dark eldar player should field. Unless your necrons otherwise I can't kill the monalith at all.

Real heavy weaponry is wasted, highest armor value in the army is 11 so you shouldn't need anything more powerful than a missle launcher and auto cannons are perfect. Also highest toughness is 3 so doesn't take much more that H- bolters to shred my infintry, and any Str 6 will insta kill the lords.

Very low model count armies are tasty. Again with the massive amount of Str 8 ap 2 guns and some of the best close combat units in the game all your doing is making it easy on me.

With the new no partials rule the Terror fex is insane and units without fearless is bait to get pinned. so try and stay as spread out as possible this also protects you if your opponent brings disintegrators. don't deep strike anything unless you can run and scatter other wise yummy templaty goodness.

Not sure about much after that. Also don't want to give away all of my fears but those are the easy ones that a lot of people don't see.

ryzouken is right- you have to have a mixed strategy to beat Eldar, avoiding things that specific units are good at (like not fighting Banshees in CC if you can help it) and going for their weaknesses (like blowing said Banshees out of any transport they have, then shooting them with whatever as they fall like paper dolls to anything template-y, rapid fire bolters, heck even 20+ lasguns will maim them).

"Fight the shooty ones and shoot the fighty ones," basically. It's pretty unit-by-unit as they are a mixed bunch. If your opponent has an infantry-heavy shooty army, shoot his countercharge units (Banshees, harlies, whatever) while you close with the rest of his army for CC.

Mech is a special circumstance- basically you want to shoot each vehicle (the scariest-shooting ones first, like Prisms) until they are shaken, then move on- especially if the vehicles has holofields. Meanwhile, kill any exposed infantry. Again, if some of those vehicles have CC troops in them, shoot those vehicles a lot once you've shaken enough of the other ones to neuter the Eldar shooting. While his vehicles are busy being shaken, grab the objectives.

That's about all I can give you without knowing more about your specific lists. Good luck!

well to answer a few questions

I didn't mention what units I generally run since I do want to find out what units are best to run against Tau & Eldar but I do have access to all the various Marine units if need be.

Also I didn't mention the type of Eldar or Tau I face since any of the variations in the proper hands are gonna be a problem and I have yet to beat any of the variations.

anyhoo thanks for the insight so far

Shrike Termi beatdown ftw

Razorback spam with combat squads in each and dev squads with HB's

Thanks for all the info on Eldar.
So how about tactics and units to use against Tau?

Against Tau think of outflanking combat units. They can't counter anything, so just roll up the flanks

Ferik wrote:Thanks for all the info on Eldar.
So how about tactics and units to use against Tau?

OK i play tau, everyone hates our suits for good reason try to kill them first with you big guns or meltas (t4 only). CC the fire warrs and well basically any thing we have....

If he runs lots of broadsides or mech try outflanking him or deepstriking somethin nearby...however you might want to leave the mech at home or he could have a good day with them.

But for tau go CC and melta hvy, use terain to your advatage to cover your approach.

I wont reveal my escape tatics (when i come up with some) becasue my friends love to read my posts.

Also, remember to play your GAME.

If you're playing a KP game, try to focus on smaller units that you can take out faster.

In an objectives game, annihilate his troops.

Bikes hurt Tau. They're fast, have high T and good saves.

Remember that, vs. shooty tanks, "no move/no shoot" is as good as destroyed (for one round). If you're playing Eldar that spam you with Vypers or F Prisms, shoot them and focus on ONE until it can't shoot you the next turn. Then, move to the next. Rinse. Repeat. If you HAPPEN to destroy it, then all the better.

Anything SM with a Storm Shield owns Harlequins. They get saves vs all of your attacks... but it's only a 5+. Your saves, though, will always be a 3+.

As has been said earlier... fight the shooty ones and shoot the fighty ones... Also important... OUTFIGHT the fighty ones (see Harlequin example above).

Win initiative... if possible, always assault with models that have a higher Initiative than the models you're assaulting. It doesn't happen OFTEN against Eldar... but it can happen.
Matching Initiative can be just as good. You may take a beating, too... but you're one step closer to victory.

Finally... Know Your Enemy.

Do you own an Edar or Tau codex?
If not; buy them. If so; study them. Learn their weakness.



Eric

Mech Eldar and Mech Tau are two of the most difficult armies to deal with. I would agree that having alot of vehicles may not be the best idea.

But if you are playing marines you can take alot of things like razorbacks, rhinos and dreds along with a lot of infantry. Do this to give him a lot of targets thereby hopefully keeping at least part of your army intact for most of the game. Drop pods with dreads with multi-meltas = good idea. Drop pods seems to be a fantastic option for hitting those skimmers on the rear and multi-meltas are great because of the range.

But the entire army should not be in droppods nor should the entire army be mechanized. Also deploy units outside of vehicles, utilize as much cover as possible and focus on one of the following depending on the scenario: take as many troops as possible for objective grabbing, attempt to table opponent, try not to get tabled, take as many units as possible.

hopefully i may have helped with some new ideas.

Yup whats really nice is the mult-melta or melta on rear armor. Works well agains eldar too due to rear not being covered by their funky wargear that makes front and sides 14. (sry no dex here)

Also bikes with meltaguns and an assult bike with a multi-melta - i run them with my dark angles for the shere point of tank hunting and drawing tank fire (bc there will kill them otherwise) mabe put the sergent with a power fist as well so you can assult them.

Casper wrote:
Yup whats really nice is the mult-melta or melta on rear armor. Works well agains eldar too due to rear not being covered by their funky wargear that makes front and sides 14. (sry no dex here)

Uh, the last time Eldar had any AV14 front & sides was what, 1998? When the 3rd ed rules came out (with a temporary list in the book), until June of 1999 when the 3rd Ed Eldar Codex came out and reduced them down to AV12.

That said, Wave Serpents do have special wargear which still protects them somewhat from shooting from the front and sides. It limits the strength of shooting attacks to a max of 8, and negates extra Pen dice from meltas and such. So your basic point was correct that if you can drop behind them with a melta, it’s much more effective.

Mannahnin wrote:

Casper wrote:
Yup whats really nice is the mult-melta or melta on rear armor. Works well agains eldar too due to rear not being covered by their funky wargear that makes front and sides 14. (sry no dex here)

Uh, the last time Eldar had any AV14 front & sides was what, 1998? When the 3rd ed rules came out (with a temporary list in the book), until June of 1999 when the 3rd Ed Eldar Codex came out and reduced them down to AV12.

That said, Wave Serpents do have special wargear which still protects them somewhat from shooting from the front and sides. It limits the strength of shooting attacks to a max of 8, and negates extra Pen dice from meltas and such. So your basic point was correct that if you can drop behind them with a melta, it’s much more effective.

Ah thats it thanks.

War Walkers also have that holo/energy field thing