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Hi There,

A friend and I have just got back into playing 40k. He's playing Tau and I'm playing Eldar. We play 1500 points. Would anyone have any suggestions for my Eldar list to fight his Tau.

The last game we played I had a squad of 10 Banshees with Exarch on foot. By the time I got his Kroot into hand to hand I only had 3 Banshees left and they were masacred. Would replacing these with Striking Scorpions be a better option seeing as I can start the game much closer to him. The reason this sqauad are on foot is because I don't really have enough points in my list to put them in a Wave Serpent.

This is as far as I've gotten with my list so far. Still undecided were I will use up the last few points.


HQ:
Farseer with Doom and Fortune. 110 pts


Troops:
10 Dire Avengers with Exarch(Bladestorm) in a Wave Serpent(Shruiken Cannon). 247 pts

10 Dire Avengers with Exarch(Bladestorm) in a Wave Serpent(Shruiken Cannon). 247 pts.


Elites:
6 Striking Scorpions with Exarch(chainsabers and ifiltrate). 133 pts.

6 Fire Dragons with Exarch(firepike and tank hunter) in a Wave Serpent. 221 pts.


Fast Attack:
6 Warp Spiders with Exarch(dual deathe spinners and withdraw). 164 pts.


Heavy Support:
Falcon(Shruiken Cannon and missile launcher). 145 pts.

3 War Walkers(6 Scatter lasers). 180 pts.


Total: 1447 pts.


Thanks.

#1 Don't assault kroot, just shoot the piss outta them or ignore them.

I don't really condone list tailoring because it kinda defeats the purpose of making a balanced list.

That being said, what kinda Tau is he typically running?

Warwalkers will get torn to hell by Tau, Striking Scorps will work if he is doing gunline and is dumb enough to stay 12" from the board edge, and Bladestorm avengers means you are tryign to outshoot a shooty army.

Due to model limitations.

And sorry I don't know the exact names of his units.

This is from memory

HQ:
XV88 Battle Suit.

Troops
3 units of fire warriors,one of which is in a transport.
1 unit of kroot.

Elites:
An XV25 Stealth team.

Fast Attack:
2 Piranha's
Vespid Stingwing Squad

Heavy Support:
1 Hammerhead
1 XV88 Broadside
A Sniper Gun Drone Team

He has them all kitted out but I can't remember what with.

I find the Pulse Rifles on the Fire warriors to be a nightmare for my foot troops.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry the HQ is either an XV8 or a Battlesuit Commander.

Your list seems ok, you have a bit of fat stuck on there, swap out the dragon exarch for a normal dude, and don't take 2 powers unless you also buy fortune on your farseer.

I see you have learned the first lesson of banshees- serpent or gtfo!

Anyway, generally against tau you should be assaulting with everything whenever you get the chance. Warp spiders, dire avengers, whatever. If you are in combat, then he's not shooting you!

Take that with a grain of salt, and don't leave yourself too vulnerable. Remember that eldar can be the second fastest (after dark eldar) so you should be able to catch his tau. If you try to engage in a straight up shoot out- you'll probably lose. Close combat and speed are your tools against the tau.

Most lists I see on the interweb seem to have Banshees instead of Scorpions. I can't understand why. Am I right in saying they are virtualy the same except that Banshees can hit and run/hit first with the Banshee howl, whereas scorpions can infiltrate but have a better save. I can't see the hit and run tactic being better than having more survivability because the Banshees can only run away six" so they either get dead in close combat if they stay there or they get shot when they run away. Or is there something else I'm not seeing. Please correct me if there is.

Banshees don't have hit and run, they have power weapons. A squad of initiative 10 power weapons makes them versatile. They can engage things like dark eldar, blood angels, and genestealers while scorpions get left in the dust.

That said competitive lists don't take any cc. Eldar don't need it, but it can be fun to have a squad. So try em out. Banshees need a serpent though

I posted up the reasons for Banshees vs Scorps in your other thread, so I'll let you check that over there. Kroot fall into that slim catagory of Scorps are better, but why assault them when you can just shoot them or ignore them.

Vs this type of list you honestly want 3 squads of Fire Dragons 5 maned, and a bunch of wave serpents with EMLs.

- Fire Dragons have a 12" range so if you are shooting him, he doesn't have that annoying as hell cover save. If you hit, it'll go boom.

- EMLs in blast mode have S4 AP4 Pinning, which just wrecks fire warriors day.

- Serpents negate str 5 fire, piranha melta, snipers 99.9% of the time, and give those big nasty railguns the finger. They are a big ball of fun for Tau.


Now you said you have model limitations so please list what models you ahve and we can go from there on a list.

Thanks for the help man.

When I said I have model limitations. Essentially I meant I have very few wave Serpents.

My list of models is as follows

HQ:
2 avatars
3 Farseers
A bucket load of warlocks

Troops:
30 dire avengers
30 guardians with 3 gun platforms
6 rangers
3 jetbikes

Elites:
6 Wraithguard
10 Fire Dragons
6 Harlequins
10 Striking Scorpions
20 banshees

Fast Attack:
3 Vypers
6 warp spiders
10 swooping hawks

Heavy support:
2 Wraithlords
3 war walkers
1 falcon
5 dark reapers

I think that's it.

I can't remember if the Avatar is 0-1 but if not you could have 4 MCs running up the field. That could be interesting and probably fun to try out.

Gah... not alot there that I would classify as "anti-tau". Need moor serpents, I would recommend that every Eldar player have 5 for list diversification.

Please note, this is a VERY specialize list that I could never condone for all comers... and even saying take this vs Tau is kinda eh...

Farseer w/ Guide (in Falcon)
Eldrad (goes with locks, proxy a farseer)
7 Warlocks (2 Embolden, 1 Enhance, 2 Destructor)
Wave Serpent w/ EML

5 Fire Dragons
Wave Serpents w/ EML
5 Fire Dragons
Wave Serpents w/ EML

10 Guardians w/ Scatter Laser + Warlock w/ Embolden (keep them in cover, their job is to cover an object and hunt that piranha while not getting eaten by kroot)
5 DA (In Falcon)

3 War Walkers w/ Dual S Cannons (Outflank, spray and pray against the best target)
Falcon w/ EML, Holofield, Stones

Essentially you fortune your Warlock Serpent and Full out straight at him along with the 2 Dragons. Warwalkers outflank and hope to catch something in their 12" bubble. Guardians are there since they are the most durable without a Serpent and their scatter last has a good shot at downing the piranhas. Falcon keep obscured or out of LOS from the Railguns while taking the guided anti-tank shots.

It's far from optimal but should fair well.

Yeh I know. I have my eye on a few wave serpents online. Should have them next week. Hopefully getting 4 but that will depend on how the biding goes. I'm nOt in a position to buy new ones. Too pricey. For arguments sake if I had the 4 wave serpents what would ya do.

Probably drop a lock and both destructors, drop guardians, and take 5 DA in an EML serpent