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Title says it clealy. i cant find a reason why choose Eldar and not BA
any got reason?

Well, Tau is a shooty army. BA is a fast moving army and can be geared towards assault. Tau begins to struggle if an enemy force reaches its front ranks. Here BA could come in providing counter-strike units. BA also could offer a Deathstar like DC or Termies and some units that can take out isolated squads in the enemy's back field like Assault Marines, Vanguard Veterans, or Sang. Guard.

Eldar bring the fastest scoring and contesting units in the game, along with very strong psychic defense.

Eldar is a much more subtle army than BA.
Dire avengers backed by a farseer using bladestorm is wow.
Banshees with doom is fantastic.
It's all about it working well together over the brutal strength and armour of marines.

It's a scalpel slice to a shotgun blast, but when scorpions tie up that devi squad that's some saved tau.

I think Eldar. might be better. Bring Eldrad and swap his powers so he can effect Tau units. Also using Eldar rangers to hold back objectives is strong.

Blood angels make for better allies than Eldar than Tau. Tau and Eldar are both fragile, so having some power-armoured toughness helps. Plus you can take a storm raven, giving you access to a flier at least.

Eldar. Psyker defense at its best plus taking some rangers and maybe one or two other things. Amazing boosts to tau armies, such as the divination power that forces opponents to re-roll successful saves.

Dont forget eldar are battle brothers with the Tau where are Blood angels are not so you would have to rely on the strength of the marines on thier own and probabaly wouldnt make nearly as cohesive of an army

Eldar for 2 reasons, Fortune on your Battlesuits? I think Yes! And as much as I hate people taking Eldar purely for their Psker defense, I think tau would benefit greatly, if you could afford it, Eldrad would pimp up your army... Just saying.

Eldrad could add some synergy with his powers to a Tau army. However, Eldar troops need to be chosen with care. Options are 6 Guardian Jetbikes w/ 2 shuricannons led by a Warlock with embolden, or 10 Dire Avengers w/ bladestorm mounted in a Serpent w/ tl scatterlaser, underslung shuricannon, or 5 Pathfinders.

so a good choice would be Eldrad+10 Dire Avengers?

Nologik wrote:Eldar for 2 reasons, Fortune on your Battlesuits? I think Yes! And as much as I hate people taking Eldar purely for their Psker defense, I think tau would benefit greatly, if you could afford it, Eldrad would pimp up your army... Just saying.

Fortune only works on Eldar units.

I am biased, but as a BA player Tau seem like a good addition to my footslogging speed army.

From my side Crises suits and firewarriors are good point choices and your tanks have str10 goodness.

From a Tau side, I would say take a droppod with some of our guys. Librarian (divination) + Tactical squad or Recularch + DC can delay your opponent from reaching you and add some pain.

Tau with Necrons is better then both of those combo's.

Overlord, Warscythe, MMS, CCB
Immortals with Tesla on a Night Scythe
Doom Scythe

All that sickness for 555 points. The overlord is one of the best melee units in the game and on a chariot and dish out major damage. Immortals can be dropped off on an objective late in the game and are semi decent at survival (can add a lord for more toughness if needed). Plus 2 flyers.

I've tried Tau + Orks and Tau + Eldar. Tau + Orks is great because Orks are horde and are very strong in assault. Tau + Nobz Bikers is like a match made in heaven. Tau + Eldar is also strong. Eldrad casting Prescience on potentially two units and Dooming enemy squads? That's a lot of firepower.

I've yet to try Tau + Blood Angels. Perhaps I'll try them next in the near future.

Eldar options

Eldred -> Exchange all powers

Farseer with Jetbike -> Can join a Crisis suit squad, cast fortune on herself (note she MUST cast it on herself, so only the Crisis suit grp she is in can ever be affected) which will affect everyone in the unit, also the Jetbike will let her JsJ with the Crisis suits (remember to give her a Singing Spear too)

Farseer or Eldred with Warlocks -> Destructor, Fortune and Doom will makes this an insane Tarpit unit, but very expensive points wise

Rangers -> Can withstand a ton of fire, can infiltrate and has fairly powerful sniper shots, also fairly expensive tho

Swooping Hawks or Warp Spiders - because Tau love movement shenanigans

Dark Reapers -> Can join your Deathrain suits with their 48" S5 Heavy 2 AP3 shots

Shadowsun and Wraithguards -> This one is tricky (and potentially illegal), bring Shadowsun without her drones(or have them killed by jumping off buildings), and have Shadowsun join a Wraithguard unit with Conceal, this will give you a +2 cover save while in open terrain, add in Fortune to make shooting armies truly rage

Talamare wrote:Farseer with Jetbike -> Can join a Crisis suit squad, cast fortune on herself (note she MUST cast it on herself, so only the Crisis suit grp she is in can ever be affected) which will affect everyone in the unit, also the Jetbike will let her JsJ with the Crisis suits (remember to give her a Singing Spear too)

Doesn't work as such. While joined, an IC is treated for all purposes as being part of the unit. The IC is thus part of a "Tau" unit and cannot have Fortune cast on it.

So where does everyone keep gettin that fortune only works the eldar? If they are battle brothers then they get the same bonuses as if they were part if the same army......right?

Wolfnid420 wrote:So where does everyone keep gettin that fortune only works the eldar? If they are battle brothers then they get the same bonuses as if they were part if the same army......right?

The rule book states the battle brothers benefit from psychic powers - at least the poorly worded German edition.

It's worded as they're treated like friendly targets for the sake of psychic powers. The issue is many Eldar powers specifically mention targeting Eldar units - not friendly units.

So Prescience on Tau works, but Guide on Tau does not work.

I say Blood Angels make a better fit for the Tau in particular. The things that Eldar do bring to back the Tau up - psychic defence, speedy scoring units - can be performed by Blood Angels as well, though admittedly not as effectively. But the key factor is that they plug the Tau's main drawback much, much more effectively than Eldar - close combat.

Now I know that Eldar do have some very decent close combat units, but bear in mind the shortcomings of the allied FOC and the Eldar's specialisation. You're not going to be able to take all the Eldar units necessary to cover all the bases, and still bring along that psychic superiority, AND still have enough points for a viable primary Tau force. You also have to bear in mind that against the wrong opponent, the Eldar assault units fold all too quickly.

The Blood Angel units on the other hand can multitask, meaning you can get yourself a couple of units that can effectively take on whatever assault troops are thrown at you. Remember that as the allies, the Blood Angels don't necessarily have to win all of these possible combats - they simply have to be viable and survivable. If you can at least tie up the assault element of your opponent, the Tau will have no distractions and can bring their full firepower to bear.