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Hey gang,

I have a game against an Eldar player. 1000 pts. I've never played against eldar ever so I'm pretty clueless on how they fight and what to do. My friends who've played against this guy say his usual tactics are attacking first with Warp Spiders, then coming in with the Wave Serpent loaded w/Dire Avengers...or something to that effect.

I'd appreciate any kind of help and tips that'll help me against the Eldar. I'm thinking 3 broadsides, 1 Hammerhead, 2 squads Fire warriors, and whole buncha crisis suits (weapons and other goodies on advice of players).

Recommendations?

Stealth suits.

The tau gatling is a deadly weapon against eldar. A large squad can eliminate most aspect warrior squads quite easily.

Hmmm,

So loading up on burst cannons would be a good idea? My normal configuration for my suits is burst cannon and plasma rifle or BC and missle pod....

Me thinks I'll load up on these puppies...

Honestly, do what the eldar player won't expect.

I'm an eldar player, and all the Tau players I know play pretty much the same way, so its gets VERY easy to counter and read them.

As an Eldar player fighting Tau, I always take things to deal with Crisis suits, and usually, that means stuff that can deal with Stealth suits.

Be flexible, and unpredictable.

Focus your fire. Eldar can field a lot of threats, so pick something and make it go away. Melee is your worst enemy here, just about every Eldar unit, guardians included, will beat down almost everything you have.

Be mobile, don't sit still, and be aggressive. Letting the eldar player come to you us a bad idea, its what Eldar forces do. Take the fight to them and catch them off guard.

Well, I like to play annoying and do a lot of JSJ. Have never played an eldar force EVER so I'm kind of clueless here. Heck, I don't even know what kind of things they have. One of my friends said that the player I'm going up against has these bipedal walkers that do crazy damage...but the range is like 18'' or so? Don't know what the heck that is.

Eldar have 2 bipedal walkers, one is an AV10 open topped vehicle with 2 heavy weapons (usually missile launchers or brightlances), The other is wraithlords, which is what you really have to be worried about.

Wraithlords are S10 T8 W5 Sv3+ monstrous creatures that can buy a weapon that allowed them to re-roll misses in CC (that is hitting you on 3's anyway), all of your weapons wound it on a 6 (bolters and lasguns cant even touch it!), and on top of that is has 2 flamers, and up to two heavy weapons.

They are between 100 and 150 points a piece.

Have fun.

I spend most of my days facing off against eldar and its was a real pain to get started.

1. Do whatever it takes to find the eldar codex and read it twice. Nearly every eldar unit has two or more special rules that Eldar players love to lord over you. Understanding what they do makes a big difference. In particular read the pyschic powers for both farseers and warlocks. These are very commonly used powers that can make you life difficult if you are not prepared for them. Especially fortune, doom and guide

2. I have always found that all the eldar infantry models look alike from across the table. Ask ask and ask again what that unit of infantry is and reference the unit and what it does so you shoot the right thing.

3. Remember eldars greatest strength and weakness is that every unit is optomised for one task and they have the wargear, psychic powers, and special rules to own anyone in that particular task. Make them do something else. . . not so much

4. As a tau player remember that eldar on the whole are short ranged (less than 18"), but extremely mobile. More mobile than mech tau.

On to the list
With what you have told us a sort of hybrid of two of the more effective eldar builds, (those being mechdar and eldzilla).

Warpspiders are are teleporting MEQ with a short ranged assault 2 ap- weapon. Come in packs of 5-10 and can move extremely fast. 6" move d6 run 2d6 teleport per turn. Exarch can carry strength 6 ap1 pinning rifle. Not espically great in cc but can be given the hit and run usr to break free of cc and move 3d6 in any direction
Kill with ionheads, plasma rifles, sniper drone teams or massed pulse rifle fire. These guys are mainly harassment as they can't kill many things but try up your units in assault so they miss shooting phases

Dire Avengers are troops that function much like firewarriors. They spend most of their time sitting in a transport on an objective. One of their special rules is bladestorm which allows each DA to fire 3 shots while losing their next shooting phase to reload.(write this down). With only a 4+ save mow these guys down with submunition rounds or pulse rifle fire. Also the CIB is pretty dirty vs DA. Kill these guys first in objective games

The wave serpent is the dedicated transport of the Eldar. It has many of the same rules as a devilfish. The main rub is the energy field special rule. Any weapon that hits the front or side of the wave serpent is limited to strength 8 even if it is stronger and meltas don't get their second d6 to penetrate. This makes railguns much weaker as they are now hitting on a 4+ rather than 2+. Also check out the eldar vehicle special rules as they can make drastic differences about how the transport moves and deals with damage
Deal with these with mobility by using fusion or plasma armed suits or piranhas to destroy the transport from behind or put lots of high strength weapons into the front from ionheads or sniper teams

Finally the wraithlord a cc beatstick that will obliterate firewarriors by the dozen and smite crisis suits with a single blow. Do what ever you can to stay a long long way away from the wraithlord. A wound from a wraithlord in cc with insta-kill any non tank model in the tau army. Usually carrying a large amount of weapondry espically flamers this is something you want to kill right away. With a 3+ save and toughness 8!! the best way I have found is ion cannons. Two ionheads can generally kill a wraithlord per turn. Also remember that the wraithlord is not relentless and can't fire heavy weapons on the move so if he moved he can't fire a starcannon, brightlance, or a missile launcher.

I didn't see anything about an hq so just something general. This is where most of the annoying psychic powers come from. Usually immune to instant death and with 3 wounds these can be a pain but a steady application of fire over two turns usualy kills them

Finally a list suggestion
HQ
Shas'el
FB,CIB,HWMT,HWDC,HWTL,Stims, Bonding w/2 shield drones
Shas'vre
TL PR, Flamer,HWMT,HWDC, w/two gun drones
Shas'vre
TL PR, Flamer,HWMT,HWDC, w/two shield drones
292

Heavy Support
Railhead with BC, DP, MT
165
Ionhead with BC, DP, MT
130
Ionhead with BC, DP, MT
130

Troops
6 FW
60
6 FW
60
DF, DP
85

78 points to taste
Piranha
More FW
Monat crisis suit

This is an agressive list going for tabling the opponent while keeping kp's down. Use the crisis team to obliterate those warp spiders, the ion heads to kill the wraitlord, and the rail head dropping large templates on DA's in the open or solid shot into the transports

Epic post

have a good game

The problem with the above list is predictability. Piranhas are a great addition, but everything else is standard Tau gunline for an eldar player. Its nothing new. While your firewarriors can cut down Dire Avengers like nobody's business, 95% of the time they're going to be in a Wave Serpent, which you -must- treat exactly like a tank.

Treat it like an APC and get ready to be rocked. Twin Linked plasma missiles on every wave serpent will cut through any Fire Warriors you have out in the open. The Eldar player probably won't try to out-Tau, tau. He'll play to his strengths, not to yours.

Your biggest enemy is going to be Wave Serpents, War Walkers, and anything fast. A squadron of just 3 war walkers infiltrating behind you will ruin your day with that setup.

If you're infantry are in plain sight, they're dead, or he'll hit the rear armour of the tanks. Do NOT sit still! And definately don't count out kroot. They can slow down an Eldar player and make him think. Play standard Tau, and any eldar player who's played them before will know how to win.

Loading up a couple squads of crisis suits with fusion/plasma and deep striking them to take out wave serpents always puts a frown on eldar player's faces. Eldar rely on their mobility to get there fragile firepower to bear on you. Walking Dire Avengers are not a problem, but having them drop out of a serpent and then bladestorm you is another problem entirely.

You clearly need to play more tau because my list is anything but a gunline. Any unit except the fw can move 12" and fire all weapons and with 8 strength 7 or higher shots per turn I don't worry about wave serpents. Infilitrate war walkers and see what 12 strength 5 shots does to armor 10 let alone ion cannons or railguns

Hmmm. I haven't played Eldar yet, but I thought I'd pack loads and loads of suits with Twinlinked Missile Pods. That should be much more cost-effective against Eldar tanks than Railguns. Is that totally stupid idea?

1. wraithlords are relentless, being a MC grants them that
2. in terms of tactics, massed fire works well against eldar

Thanks for bringing that up I forgot that Wraithlord are MC not walkers

your welcome

if he has starcannons on his WL, then alot of Tau will start dying, because they are str6 AP2. also scatter lasers and shuriken cannons should not be ignored

Thanks for the tips, guys.

As it turned out, I lost but not by a lot. I had to concede at the end because all I had left were 2 crisis suits left.

1. I took into account what some of you saying take burst cannons. I did and they worked pretty well.

2. I focused a lot of my firepower on 1 thing at a time. I took 3 Broadsides and 1 Hammerhead. All those railshots eventually took it out. My opponent kept passing his cover saves with that super move that Wave Serpent thing does (and yes, I learned that they are ANNOYING!). Eventually I got to blow it up.

3. Comments about his walkers...unfortunately I didn't take into consideration at my detriment. He took 2 war-walkers (i think thats what they're called) and outflanked me. Ended up assaulting my firewarrios and killing them all off (I failed my morale test).

Things I learned from playing eldar my first time:

1. Wave Serpents are ANNOYING! Take em out. He loaded the Serpent w/Dire Avengers and I heard that Bladestorm is bad.

2. Don't depend too much on Hammerhead. After playing w/both Broadsides and Hammerheads, it seems my Broadsides last longer and do more damage.

3. Time to upgrade my Firewarriors w/a Leader. Failing my Ld tests almost every game tends to wipe out my gunline.


Anyway, thanks for your guys help. I really appreciate it.