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Alright, so whenever I have played against Imperial Guard or Tau... which hasn't been often, if I don't get first turn then all my vehicles either pop or become tools for Tank Shocking and Ramming. And with all of the large blast ordnance weapons IG has, my other units usually lose their effectiveness.

And so after first turn I'm usually fighting a hopeless uphill battle, and I was just wondering if there were any tips for going up against these particular armies with Eldar in mind, any help would be appreciated.

start your ranged units in reserve. When they come on put them in cover. Remember IG and Tau generally aren't that accurate so the offside to the amount of shots forthcoming is tempered by the fact that (most of the time) a lot will miss their target. Combined with cover you should only be getting hit 25% of the time.

use your fleet units and press the assault.
As far as IG are conserned, make sure you've got init 4 or more and plenty of attacks. Don't let your assault units get bogged down in a platoon of conscripts, that's exactly what they are there for, tie them up with a war walker. keep your big guns blasting at the IG artillery, heavy weapon squads and tanks.
To net some quick KP, nail command squads ASAP, they are 2 KP each comprised of 5-7 T3 wounds with 5+ saves, and IG have two minimum per army.

When you fight Tau with heaps of vehicles, make sure turn their rear armours toward the hammerhead.

Play for victory points vs the IG instant win. LOL


But if you don't want to be a tool then I go for a very mobile army list. Lots of wave serpents with DA, PW and shimmer shield and blade storm. Scorpions outflanking / infialtrating. use swooping hawks and bounce them with grenades, the FAQ states that you can DS and then remove them in the same turn with skyleap so for around 150 you can get a "bolter" Pie plate anywhere on the board almost every turn, grab the sunrifle since you have a shot at pinning them with there crappy LD. If you have some extra points a farseer with mind war is great to pick off squad leaders / marker lights / special weapons. Also if you have it, a squad of warlocks on Jetbikes is worth its weight in gold.

As for basic tactics against IG take out the JOs as quickly as you can. If you get them down in a couple turns the rest of the army should run off the board really quickly. If he runs mostly tanks a unit of firedragoins in a WS will earn back double its points in 2 rounds.

Against tau its much more of the same thing. Stick Star engines on your WS so you can ram tanks at Str 10 when you are done unloading your troops.

You mean, aim for the rear armor of the Hammerhead, right?

Don't worry, English is a silly language anyway...

Yeah, Tau vehicles are all Av10 rear I belive.

Thanks for the advice guys, if there are anymore by all means post them. It's been helpful so far.

I've played Eldar against (Mech) Tau many times, and the thing I've learned the hard way is that you have to chase them down. HAVE to. Eldar have decent long ranged shooting, but when you trade long range shots with Tau you're just playing their game.

The edge Eldar have is devastating shooting at 12"-18". Fire Dragons, Dire Avengers, Storm Guardians...these guys hurt Tau bad up close. Get in skimmers and blitz them. If you give Tau room to JSJ, maneuver and castle, you're not doing yourself any favours.

If you play mech, don't be afraid to rush. You will take a turn of hits, but Wave Serpents up front moving >12" will take a lot of fire, plus they'll protect the skimmers behind them.

Also, I strongly advise against taking too much infantry against Tau. You won't be able to bring enough firepower against them, and burst cannons/Rail submunitions will wreck your lines badly. Getting wounded on 2s by almost every weapon in the Tau army is a hard hill to overcome.

You don't necessarily need assault units to beat Tau; you just need to close that gap and make him panic.

When you deploy, you always (ok, 5 out of 6 times) know who is going first. If it is your opponent, then just start most (or all) of your army in reserve. He can't shoot you there. Just make sure that anything you put in reserve is fast enough to get on the board and do something. Otherwise, set up your guys in cover and spread out so that the templates do minimal damage to you.

Something that I've found useful is using the Avatar (preferably with Fortune) and Wraithlords to absorb enemy fire that'd otherwise be directed at my Wave Serpents or Fire Prisms. Neither the Guard nor Tau want to be close to hardened assault units like those, so newer players in particular are likely to concentrate on them first. This allows your mobile units to close the distance, utilizing the Eldar's mid-range firepower or (preferably) launching assaults.

On another note, heavy flamers will work wonders against both of these armies. Warlocks with Destructor or Fire Dragon Exarchs can make this happen.