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Monstrous Creatures are good right?

Eldar:
Farseer on jetbike

3x jetbikes
3x jetbikes

Wraithknight with 2x Scatter Lasers and Heavy Wraith Cannons


Tau:
Ethereal

Riptide with Ion Accelerator, Fusion, and EWO
Riptide with Ion Accelerator, Fusion, and EWO
Riptide with Heavy Burst Cannon and SMS

10 Kroot with Hound
10 Kroot

2x Tetras
5x Pathfinders

Skyray with SMS, BSF, D-Pod
Skyray with SMS, BSF, D-Pod
Skyray with SMS, BSF, D-Pod

Total: 1750 on the dot


So that gives me 5 markerlight sources, I can alpha strike 18 missiles first turn and a bunch of low (high?) ap fire from the two riptides and the wraithknight while the HBC riptide weight of fires smaller things. Need to stop an enemy from holding an objective? throw a riptide into CC in the final turns of the game! (Disclaimer: may not work against force weapons, and other quite competent CC units). The skyrays, once spent of their missiles, continue to support with the occasional markerlighting, as well as SMS shots, heck even just throw em forward for tank-shocking or unit blocking.

Why does the Wraithknight have TWO 20 point weapons he'll never fire? Why just throw 40 points in the bin?

What's your plan in an objective mission?

Why wouldn't he fire the scatter lasers? He's an MC, so can't he fire all his weapons, and they're all 36" range... plus the scatter lasers give me TL-ing.


And the strategy in objective based games is throw 4 very mobile, hard to kill MCs at the most important objectives, and if worst case scenario contest those objectives. Not ideal granted, but I've found riptides to be rather hard to take off an objective, especially the backfield ones where the enemy is unlikely to be keeping super killy CC units. They kind of act like a giant tar pit.... kind of.

He's a MC and therefore can fire TWO weapons. So you fire the SLs and then can't fire the Wraithcannons. Or you fire 1 SL and twin linked a Wraithcannon when you'd have been better off just firing both Wraithcannons...

Let me know how your plan for objectives goes. Against decent players my guess is not well at all...

Aha, so yes, I was under the impression that they could fire two weapons, but correct you are, so I'll have to amend that. Thank you.

What would you suggest for the objective game? Tau troops aren't exactly survivable or mobile....

I like how I read an OP post, then scroll down to find FlingItNow to have already taken the words out of my mount.

Wraithknight should only have the two Heavy Wraithcannons, he has no use for the Scatterlasers. Poor unit design by GW.

Take those 40pts and add a Stim Injector to the HBC Riptide. If the HBC Riptide does not have an ECPA he needs to have a Stim Injector.

That Skyray Alpha Strike is partially wasted as the are one turn wonders, I'd drop one Skyray to add in two more small scoring units because as FlingitNow has already said, you have abyssmal scoring units and against good opponents they will punish you for it even with full reserve on your scoring units they are frail and pray for the greater good if you roll Relic as your mission as short of tabling its nearly an autolose.

Also, if running a Farseer on a bike, give him the Mantle, otherwise its an easy KP as most armies can laugh a unit of Jetbikes that small off the table.

Your troops don't have to be necessarily durable or mobile, but simply more numerous.

Troop selection is currently the weakest part of Taudar as bikes are amazing if you go 2nd but any resonable opponet who wins the roll off will go 2nd and just nuke your objective grabbers making you have to basically table your oppnent to win.

Since you win if you go 2nd and shoot well we should only be concerned about what to do if you go first.

The best objective grabbers for backfield are large guardian blob squads supported by farseers, or large kroot squads with a etheral but they eat too many points to be truely effective.

The best objective grabbers for opponents objectives are probably 6 jetbikes with cannons and warlock for 3+ 2+ cover last turn and ablative wounds to stay alive.

Kroot are a decent objective grabbers but only if you have cleared the place where they are coming on if they get shot at or charged you have 10 dead kroot.

The most competative objective grabbers are probably wave serpent guardians or possibly dire avengers as they are relatively well protected till last turn, and 10/5 bodies is better than 3 but you only get a 5/4 up so place your objectives in cover and pray to hold out.

TBH for tau/dar its about table control your units will not survive last turn if you let them get shoot at/charged so you have to clear every threat to them before your opponent goes.

Hm, so the dual wraith cannon is the best loadout? Even though you only get 1 str10 hit where you could get two hammerheads for that price? Something doesn't seem right here.....
What about the sword and shield + scatter laser + star cannon? that gives you some decent shooting until you get into CC and an invuln.

I'm reticent to give up two bike squads because the surprise mobility and objective grabbing is amazing, buuuuut wave serpents do bring some decent firepower (read: amazing) for their cost. Shame I can't bring more eldar troops without giving up riptides....

With a list like this you're basically playing a game. It's called "do you have enough anti MC?" You're putting all of your eggs in one basket. However as far as lists like these are concerned it isn't too bad, but here are my thoughts.

Is the Ethereal needed? You're mainly just a bunch of MCs and vehicles. I think the Ethereal will give you a OK benefit (FNP & Stubborn), but he would just get focus fired and killed.

Should the Farseer be on a jet bike? It could be useful, but it depends on what your plans are. I'm thinking that you'll have to stick him with the other, less mobile HQ.

Should the Skyrays have D-pods? Once they blow their loads they are basically just marker light units like the rest of your team. The only difference is that they are a lot tougher than the others.

Is there anything you can do to keep your troops off the board? You could try keeping them in reserve and hope that they stay off the board. You could put them in or behind a fortification/vehicle. You want to keep them out of harms way. So the less chances the enemy has to shoot at them the better.

The Wraithknight issue has already been addressed.

Have you looked into the farsight enclave? you could have a scoring unit (albeit a squishy one) for 23 points. Then you could purposefully misshap and put them back into reserve until turn 5.

You know, the farsight idea is pretty good, it kind of reminds me of solo-dins from GK in 5th. And I could give the lone HBC riptide the earth caste array. You also do raise a good point about the dpods. I guess I was just worried about losing markerlight sources, but that might be better accomplished with another pathfinder instead or something. As for the ethereal, I wasn't quite sure what else to bring. Fireblade is meh here due to low/no FWs, and I don't really have th epoints to sink into shadowsun or a commander. Any suggestions?

pleasantnoodles wrote:
Monstrous Creatures are good right?

Eldar:
Farseer on jetbike

3x jetbikes
3x jetbikes

Wraithknight with 2x Scatter Lasers and Heavy Wraith Cannons


Tau:
Ethereal

Riptide with Ion Accelerator, Fusion, and EWO
Riptide with Ion Accelerator, Fusion, and EWO
Riptide with Heavy Burst Cannon and SMS

10 Kroot with Hound
10 Kroot

2x Tetras
5x Pathfinders

Skyray with SMS, BSF, D-Pod
Skyray with SMS, BSF, D-Pod
Skyray with SMS, BSF, D-Pod

Total: 1750 on the dot
.

You will never really need 3x Riptides. You'll find diminishing returns after the 2nd one as Crisis Teams, Kroot or Firewarriors offer more damage output.
Similarly, 3x Skyrays is a waste. Most lists need 1... maybe 2. I recommend dropping 1x Skyray + 1x riptide for more Kroot

I run a similar list at 1500 3 riptides a wraithknight. I use commander pointsynch( c&cn,msss,puretide, iridium) attach him to a riptide and watch stuff die. If I get fortune the jetseer goes in the same squad, then guide/super guide the other riptides or wraithknight and 1 riptide. 3 bikes are awesome. Objectives can be a problem but if you put ur riptides on some of the objectives then your opponent will struggle to capture them.

Sky rays can be a 1 hit wonder so perhaps try a unit of warp spiders they synch well with riptides and wraithknights.

Similarly you can drop the bikes one riptide and one skyray and pick up 2 5 man dire avenger wave serpents with holo fields and buff the kroot squads up to 15 with hound add cannons if points left.

2 wave serpents would work quite well actually, if points permit I would take guardians though for more shots.

keep in mind, that close combat with a riptide can have the hillarious result of it running away like a coward. Putting all your eggs in that basket is silly. Also where are the ungodly levels of broadside missile spam that any tau list should totally have. think 2's. 2 riptides, 2 skyrays add broadsides and a cheap but hillarious unit of crisis suits. double burst cannons are intensely funny for cleaning up enemy troops and just beeing hillarious. Maybe trade in some kroot for pathfinders. With an ethereal they are awesome!

I like how everyone is trying to bring "balance" to this list when this list was clearly designed to be imbalanced. Yes having pretty much 2 types of units is going to have some major weaknesses, but it also has some strengths.

The point of the 3 Skyrays is obviously just so a Hail Mary play. You target the $#!% out of anything that could threaten your monstrous creatures. Then you just have fun stomping around with 4 MCs.

I think you do have some options.
1) You could cut the costs of D-pods, maybe blacksun filters (you ignore cover anyways), MAYBE the jetbike, and scatter lasers and you got yourself more troops.
2) You could cut the cost of D-pods, scatter lasers, Ethereal, and pathfinders and you could get yourself a Commander with drone controller and a drone squad.
3) You could cut the cost of D-pods, scatter lasers, Ethereal, and pathfinders and give yourself commander shadowsun. She'll do the most important thing that the pathfinders will do (give the HBC a chance to re-roll his gets hot) and will make 1 unit tougher.

If you do go farsight enclave you should also look into the earth cast piloting array. Though the ECPA makes Shadowsun kind of redundant.

More The idea of adding a support commander to a riptide is certainly interesting, the question is would the HBC or the Ion one be the better attachment? I'm prone to say an Ion with Plasma so you get the most out of ignores cover, but that is way less shots than the HBC (assuming a nova since I'm leaning towards earth caste array). Plus with tank hunter and that rerol I guess I could get enough rending hits to make it worthwhile.... and it does give the farseer some protection.

More and more the wraithknight seems lackluster, Sure it is a more durable double hammerhead, but wouldn't 2 hammerheads be a better investment for those points?

The support commander is a definite possibility. Just remember that anything a support commander can do can be replaced with markerlights. Markerlights can remove cover and they can effectively give you twin linked (by increasing your BS). Seeing as you have so many markerlights already, is the support commander going to see it's full benefit?

There's 1 hesitation I have with dropping the wraithknight. It would be a 550ish point change. Instead of refining your list you would be rewriting it. You'd then have to completely rethink your entire list as a good chunk of it has completely been changed.

Ok, so I did some fiddling last night, and decided to go farsight enclave and go the midland route. This gives me some troops with more firepower (a squad of 3 suits as the supplement requires) and more mobile troops for tau being jetpack. The list now:

Eldar:
Farseer on bike

2x3 jetbikes

Wraithknight with 2x heavy wraithcannons

Farsight Enclave:
Commander with 2x Missiles, Drone Controller, Iridium, Target lock and 2x marker drones

Riptide with Heavy Burst Cannon, Fusion, Earth Caste Pilot Array, EWO
Riptide with Ion Accelerator, Fusion, EWO
Riptide with Ion Accelerator, Fusion, EWO

3x Crisis with 2x Missile Pods each
1x Crisis with 2x Burst Cannons (backfield home objective out of line of sight sitter)

5x marker drones

Skyray with BSF
Skyray with BSF

1749 points

Oh wow, it's interesting to see the effect that switching to Farsight Enclave had. It seems to have made your Troops weaker.

There's only one suggestion I can think of and I don't know if it's even good. Give the solo crisis suit a single flamer, remove the black sun filters from both Skyrays, and remove the EWO on the ion riptides. You can then add 1 additional solo crisis suit with a flamer. These flamers are cheaper and might be more useful than the burst cannons. You'll also get 1 more troop for possible objective holding.

Another thought, and correct me if I'm wrong, is what if you took O'Vesa as your HQ choice? Then you don't have to buy the expensive commander and could spend the points on more markerlights and the like.

If you go 2nd your going to have a hell of a time winning, Jetbikes and single crisis suits don't make for very durable objective grabbers and the missile pod crisis would become a target somewhere in middle of the game and wiped.

Honestly I think as far as competative play the problem most tau/eldar players are having when list building is troop selection. Jetbikes are by far the best last turn objective grabbers if your going 2nd. Basically if you can clear an objective its yours.

The problem comes when your in a multi round turnoment or your playing a fun game and you go 2nd, in that case you have no troops capable of holding out against most normal units last turn forcing you to table or lose. Also against fast moving or longe range armys they just shoot your troops off the board and you can't win an objectives game.

Can I take O'vesa as my HQ? I was under the impression I needed to bring farsight and THEN I could bring him/her/giant robot of death as the 'bodyguard'

Yes, you need Farsight for O'vesa.

If you're not set on the Eldar part of your force, look into the army that won Nova. Farsight with Empire allies: O'vesa and a HBC-tide with target lock together with a buff-commander for the greatest deathstar this side of Endor. Then two more Iontides, two Skyrays, Farsight, 3 + 1 crisis suits, and about 30-40 Kroot. That was 1850, though, so you'd need to adjust.

Keep in mind, though. that everyone in the Farsight list that can take bonding must do so.

If you want Eldar, I would go for your original list, but drop the scatter lasers on the Wraithknight in favour of a mantle on the Farseer.

That NOVA list is quite the doozy, Ignore cover, twin-linker, and tank hunter on TWO riptides? whew. Hilariously, doing the math, you can actually fit 4 riptides and a wraithknight in the farsight/eldar one..... I'm not sure whether that counts as ridiculous or genius. I'm betting the former seeing as you get basically no troops and have to rely on 2x4 pathfinder groups (or an 8 man pathfinder group) to give you ignores cover and such