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So this is my first time writing a battle report and I hope it doesn't turn out too crappy.

First the armies!

Eldar:

Eldrad
Guidseer

2 Squads of Dire Avengers with bladestorm exarch in waveserpents
2 squads of minimum sized pathfinders

2 squads of minimum sized firedragons where the seer and eldrad rode with in wave serpents

pair of war walkers with scatter lasers
2 fire prisims with holo fields

My Tau!
Shas'el- AFP, Missile pod, Targeting Array, multi-tracker, drone controller, shield drone x2
Shas'el- CIB, Missile pod, Targeting Array, multi-tracker, drone controller, shield drone x2

2 squads of minimum fire warriors
min squad of kroot

Deathrain suits x2 - t/l missile pod flamer
fireknife x3 - missile pod/plasma rifle, multi-tracker

pathfinders x7 with devilfish and disruption pod
pathfinders x7 with devilfish and disruption pod
Piranhas x4 fusion blasters, flechette dischargers, seeker missile x8, disruption pod x2

Skyray - multi-tracker, targeting array, disruption pod, burst cannons
Railhead - railgun, multi-tracker, disruption pod, burst cannons
Railhead - railgun, multi-tracker, disruption pod, burst cannons

Okay! It was a really tough matchup as this army is mostly designed to handle new nids as well as mech MEQ but not so much on the super fast skimmers.

Mission: Capture and Control
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Roll off: Eldar take first turn (Damn)

Prebattle: I know this is a really tough matchup not just because his army is pretty competitive and he's a good player, but I'm still a rather novice Tau player. I outflank with my Kroot, he reserves one of his dire avenger squads and sets most everything around his objective in his deployment zone with his pathfinders in ruins actively controlling it. I set up pretty much by layering my forces with my hammerheads out front providing cover to my piranhas and pathfinders with suits pulling up the rear and way in the back were my poor fire warriors ready to hop in the pathfinder devil fish to begin scooting toward my objective (which I placed across from his even though I didn't set up anything directly controlling it).

Turn 1 Eldar:
He goes 24" with his 2 firedragon/farseer groups and 1 dire avenger squad while his warwalkers take a few steps forward. His shooting is pretty ineffectual and even his focused prisim cannon shot is shrugged off by my disruption pod. He also star engines a few more inches forward, ready to drop off his fire dragons and wreak havoc on all my armor. His psychic powers were a couple of fortunes on all his vehicles for re-roll of cover saves.

Turn 1 Tau:
I drop all my drones from the Piranhas in front of my pathfinders and flat out 24" inches as well, heading for his back line with my fusion blasters and hoping my Kroot will turn up in the right spot to take out his rangers sitting on his objective. Fire warriors pile into their respective fish and star shuffling around, everything moves around a bit to get some decent lanes of fire on everything. I start by marking the two wave serpents that are in my face at this instant and manage to get 4 hits on eldrad's wave serpent and 3 hits on the guide seer one. I take my fireknife suits and remove eldrads cover save for his wave serpent and boost my BS to wreck the serpent and make everything pile out. I blast everything away but 1 fire dragon from that squad eldrad. I ponder how to best handle the other serpent and try firing 3 seekers from the piranhas that now will get tasty rear armor shots and fail to do anything with the re-rolled cover (in retrospect I probably should have just removed cover and tried the deathrains). Shake 1 of the prisims and jump around a little with my suits.

Turn 2 Eldar:
Here's where things start to get interesting, eldrad fortunes himself, guides himself and saves the last power for a mind war with one of my shas'els. Other fire dragon group gets positioned to waste my fire knives the following turn by going 18 inches and blocking pretty much any retreat I can find. And the floating dire avenger squad hides it's rear armor and manages to shake a piranha. The war walkers try to scatter laser my piranhas going for them but don't do anything thanks to front armor 11 and a couple of cover saves. The lone fire dragon from the wrecked wave serpent manages to get within crispy range of one of my rail heads but misses! Then will assault and wreck it with his single melta bomb hit. Eldrad's mindwar is resisted. Prisims fire off another shot and don't do much again(memory is a bit hazy but I think that's about all that happened)

Turn 2 Tau:
I start by moving around to let my fish through my lines to start toward the objectives and don't see my Kroot this turn. Shooting comes and I pour fire into eldrad to silence his rediculous powers and manage to take off 2 wounds (stupid 88% chance to save). My Piranhas blow up the war walkers and I pull the scatter laser from the remaining fire dragon serpent. I probably made my biggest mistake here by assaulting eldrad with my drones and rather than taking off his last wound I get swept.

Turn 3 Eldar:
His reserves come in and he jumps over some terrain and has a clear shot at the rear armor on my piranhas . . . crap. Eldrad fortunes himself and guides himself the guidseer + dragons get out to do some damage on my suits. The dire avenger squad on my side goes over to sit on my objective (still inside the waves serpent). He vaporizes my fireknives with everything hitting and wounding. Combined fire from a blade storm and a lot of rending shots from his pathfinders see all my piranhas destroyed. Eldrad throws his magic broom at my skyray and doesn't do anything until he charges and then proceeds to stick it in my engines and blow it out of the sky. He shakes my remaining hammerhead with his prisims and things aren't looking so hot for me anymore.

Turn 3 Tau:
Kroot fail to materialize again while my deathrains get in range to drop a flamer on the fire dragons that vaped my fireknives, not a lot of movement other than my devilfish heading to my currently held objective but drop off their gun drones to shoot at eldrad some more. Shooting sees the fire dragons and guidseer obliterated with eldrad making another 6-8 saves and clinging to his 1 wound. I jump a bit toward my home objective with them in the assault phase to hopefully get the dire avengers out of their wave serpent next turn, and manage to block in eldrad with some well placed drones and his body at the table edge.

Turn 4 Eldar: Dire avengers that wrecked my piranhas hop back in their serpent, fortunes himself and isn't sure what to do to get out of the blockade of drones in his way. Shooting sees one of my devilfish having it's burst cannon removed. My last railhead gets imobilized and eldrad mind war's a drone (lol, we had to figure out if that was possible and then in the drone squad found they had LD 7 so it worked an we all had a good laugh). He then multi-assaults a devilfish and the shield drone that shared the squad. He whiffed at almost everything and was locked in combat after stunning the devilfish!

Turn 4 Tau: Kroot come in! This was exciting for me because it was the first game I'd ever had the chance to play them. They outlfank on the right side and storm into charge range of his objective! Just had to hope for a 3 inch charge on his pathfinders through difficult terrain (not forest though). A single devilfish continues it's trek to get to my home objective and contest it and hopefully make it a draw (my opponent lamented "ah of course, capture and control, the drawfest"). I'm at a loss being unable to shoot at eldrad and don't do a whole lot this turn but the great success came from how my kroot performed and ate his pathfinders without losing a model. My remaining suits shake the wave serpent on my objective and jump a bit further. My last squad of 2 gun drones block of eldrad's movement some more for after he finishes off my gun drone (which he does of course)

Turn 5 Eldar: He tank shocks my kroot a few times and lights them up with a great many guns but only kills 2 and they still contest his objective! Eldrad heads off to pop the skull on my shas'el (which he does in a spectacular fashion) and his dire avengers move off my home objective to blade storm the remaining suits into oblivion. (i'm not sure but I think that it would be at worst a draw for him if the game ended on turn 5 because my devilfish were still a ways off from grabbing the home objective). He manages to blow up a devilfish with some twin linked bright lance fire and my railhead shrugs off more fireprism shots.

Turn 5 Tau: My remaining devilfish, moves 12" and drops off my fire warriors. I run them and get a 6! The fire warriors that survived the wreck of their fish head to face off with the avengers and pump some shots and down a couple of them. The dice is rolled and it's a 1. We measure the distance from my home objective and i'm 2.5" from it!

Winner: TAU!!!

It was a really fun game, and at the end of it we both liked my list a lot and agreed that his list would probably be one of the toughest I could face. There was good luck and bad luck on both sides of the fight and not too many big errors. If it had gone to turn 6 we also knew I would have lost but that's how it goes!

I have a feeling this list will be what I bring to most 2000 point games because of the little tricks I can play with seekers while still having good AT and anti-horde.

Thanks for the read, hope you enjoyed it.

nice rep, FYI eldrad cant use 3 different powers, 2 have to be the same, and cant both be shooting psyhcic powers.

guidseer?

Good batrep, I enjoyed the read. Looking forward to your next one.

Mafty wrote:nice rep, FYI eldrad cant use 3 different powers, 2 have to be the same, and cant both be shooting psyhcic powers.

Actually 2 doesn't have to be the same..... Check the rule again.

beethoveN wrote:guidseer?

A farseer with guide I'm guessing..?

As superior said a guideseer is basically a farseer with guide. His whole purpose was to cast guide on the group of fire dragons he was with. It was a lot of fun and I'll hopefully get a game or two in this weekend against some nids with the list and see how it plays out.

SuperioR wrote:

Mafty wrote:nice rep, FYI eldrad cant use 3 different powers, 2 have to be the same, and cant both be shooting psyhcic powers.

Actually 2 doesn't have to be the same..... Check the rule again.

yes they do, i suggest you read the rules again. Eldrad may cast a third psyhcic power per turn which he has already cast. Meaning 2 have to be the same

Mafty wrote:yes they do, i suggest you read the rules again. Eldrad may cast a third psyhcic power per turn which he has already cast. Meaning 2 have to be the same

Eldar Codex Page 51 wrote:If Eldrad is not in an assault it can allow Eldrad to use a third psychic power per turn, which may be a psychic power he has already used that turn.

May != Must

Grants Permission != Requires

I could go on, but I suggest posting a post on the YMDC forum instead of continuing arguing here

wow I stand corrected.....ive been playing my old man eldrad wrong for a bit now then, heh.

Shas'el- AFP, Missile pod, Targeting Array, multi-tracker, drone controller, shield drone x2
Shas'el- CIB, Missile pod, Targeting Array, multi-tracker, drone controller, shield drone x2

Have you been having success with these configurations?

I personally have tried both special issue weapons and found them to be lacking.

I love the AFP, it's killed a great many guard, bugs, and eldar in the few games that I've faced those armies and as a bolster to your anti-horde it's a necessity in my opinion.

The CIB has been a mixed bag but overall I like it, I suppose I could squeeze 5 points for a plasma rifle but having a 2+ hit makes me want to throw those 5 dice more often than not. Besides I'm already sending out mixed wounds with the missile pod. Now that I think about it though I could probably just swap him out for a squad of 2 more fire knives. . . .I'll do some retooling and get back to ya!