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So many eldar lists on the frontpage. Sorry for adding another!

I am a relatively new eldar player, and it's also been a while since I played 40k in general. I am looking for some advice on my build, especially against all comers, as I only play against space marines regularly.

Eldar/Iyanden

HQ:
Farseer 130
Warlock 30

Troops:
5x Dire Avengers 65
5x Dire Avengers 65
3x Windrider Jetbikes 51

Transports:
1x wave serpent w/holo fields, scatter laser, shuriken cannon 145
1x wave serpent w/holo fields, scatter laser, shuriken cannon 145

Heavy Support:
1x Wraith Knight 240 (Warlord) 240
1x Vaul's Wrath Support Battery w/D-Cannon 55

Fast Attack
1x Crimson Hunter Exarch 180

Fortifications:
1x ADL w/Quad: 100

Tau:
HQ:
1x Commander w/Drone Controller, Neuro, C&C, MS, 1xShield Drone 155

Troop:
6x Fire warriors: 54

Elite:
1x Riptide w/VT, Ion Accelerator, EWO, 2x SM Drones 265

Heavy Support:
3x Broadsides w/EWO, HYMP, SMS 200

The Riptide squad is joined by the buffmander. This puts the cost of the riptide with commander to 420 points (12 points extra for a shield drone I spent because I had exactly 12 points left over), 474 if you include having to take fire warriors (or kroots). This is really pricey, and I am not sure if it is worth it. However, the riptide with buffmander is soo good against everything. I can take out units behind cover, this includes scouts, speeders jink and flyers trying to evade. It can take out fliers, it's only str 7 but has tank hunter and they can't evade. It can take out deep striking marine/terminator blobs (if I remember to nova charge the weapon in my shooting) with a ap2 large blast and missiles. It has night vision (really nice in an eldar army), and 70" range. It is really good against vehicles. The only down side is only being able to fire at one unit every round. So every time I think about dropping it, I just want to add it again to shore up whatever weakness the rest of my list has.

I have one bike squad because serpents are expensive, and it's nice to have for fast objective stealers.

I am on the verge of dropping the crimson hunter. It is the only thing I have that can reliably take out a storm raven, but it is so extremely dependent on not having night fighting first round (so I can take out enemy quad cannon), which happens 50% of all games, and coming inn after my opponents storm wing detachment. I also have a lot of anti-air already with wave serpents, skyfire and intercept on riptide, intercept on missile sides, and a quad gun. The only disadvantage is that my riptide and missile sides are usually busy intercepting deep striking units.

I have one support battery because it's a threat to my opponents centurions. If he ignores it he can instant death one, if he shoots at it that he isn't shooting at something else. Since it's barrage it can ignore the centurions inv save, which he gets by running a librarian with storm shield in the front, but the low range and being unable to move them and fire is a real pain.

The farseer I am running with a warlock (for +shrouded), manning my quad gun, in a unit with the support battery, so that it gets the same cover saves he gets. He has a rerollable 2+ cover save behind ADL, and since he is usually in the middle of the board he can buff both my WK, riptide or broadsides depending. I try and put the broadsides behind the ADL as well, since they have limited range on their missiles, and will often be primaried by AP 2 weapons.

WK is warlord and I try to give him 4+ or 5+ cover every round, with rerollable cover save and TL guns from farseer. If I don't have any proper terrain, I try and put him close to the support battery to get intervening unit cover saves and if my opponent drops centurions down to kill him, then they are close enough for the battery to shoot at them.

I know if I wanted to make this more 'all comers', then I would drop the support battery and probably put the farseer on a bike (not sure who would man the quad though). I don't like bikes much (I know they are awsome, but not my style), so I could drop them and the crimson for another wave serpent squad. Other than that, I could definitely use some tips.

Your math is off on the Broadsides by about 10 pts fyi, and shielded missile drones cost too much for their role. I know you plan on running your commander with your Riptide, but one dead drone will force a leadership check. I'm sure you don't want 400+ points of models running off the board after losing only 25 pts. Also, per the codex description of Drone Controller on page 68, drone controller does not affect missile or shielded missile drones.

Also, make sure you get it in your mind that NOVA Charge is done at the beginning of your shooting phase and OVERcharge allows you to shoot his weapon as a large blast like you're describing.

One last thing, if you want your Riptide to be even MORE effective, pair him with your Farseer on a Jetbike rather than the Tau Commander. Here's why: 1) It makes your Farseer T6 while sitting behind a 2+/5++(3++) behemoth. 2) Gives the Riptide a better companion for combat. 3) Prescience/Guide allows your Riptide to be Twin-Linked for a whole game turn, including Intercept and Overwatch. The Tau Commander's CCN and MS3 only bestow their benefits in your shooting phase. You can also attempt to get the Psyker power Perfect Timing to give him ignore cover for a whole game turn.

If you do the last recommendation, you can drop CNN from the commander and pair him with the Broadsides. This will give them Ignore Cover and Monster/Tank hunter. Or keep him the way he is, put the Warlock on the Gun, and have a Cover Ignoring Quad Gun with tank/monster hunter.

Anyways, food for thought.

Awsome feedback, thanks!

I had the 3x broadsides set up as 185 base, thanks for pointing that out. Dropping the drone controller almost makes up for it though. The drones don't get used as much since the missile pods don't have as good range as the IA, I was just trying to make them less useless.

It has worried me that a dead drone could run him of the table, and I have considered running him with the farseer in stead. I actually thought the commander gave all his buffs until the next movement phase, but rereading the rules it's only for tank hunter. This means I have been cheating, but also that it's not so essential to keep the commander with the riptide. He doesn't seem that good with the broadsides as they are already TL and the SMS missiles are ignore cover anyway. I don't feel he would make up for his point cost to only give them tank hunter. I could put the farseer with riptide, and use the commander with a marker light drone squad? How effective is a marker light commander for his points?

As for putting commander with warlock/guardian on quad gun, having ignore cover and tank hunter sounds really nice actually, and one str 7 shot more than I got with the riptide. Tbh, I wish eldar had some proper anti air, as my opponent uses a lot of air units (but nothing crazy like helldrake spam or night scythe spams, thank god)

You are definitely correct about the farseer being a better commander for assault. Last game my riptide got tied down in close combat in round 3 against a single space marine HQ (thanks to intercept fire, I still got 4 rounds worth of shooting from him though). They couldn't hurt each other, I needed 6 to hit on 2 attacks, and he had an inv save at 3+ I think, so that combat could have lasted forever.

If I go farsight enclave, I could drop the commander and only use O'vesa as HQ for 305 points and fire warriors at 59 points, but can they ally with Iyanden? Not sure how much I will miss tank hunter and velocity tracker on the riptide. Most often I am suing the EWO to take out ground units anyway.

Thanks for the good ideas, more to think about.

I have used a commander to help out marker drones to great effect. In combination of Drone Controller, they have a much higher BS than Pathfinders, can JSJ, AND have a higher toughness. Should you choose to use your Tau Commander in this manner, I recommend putting two missile pods, drone controller, and if you have the points, target lock. You miss out on the twin linking/ignore cover, but why would you need it with BS5 markerlights? If you do this though, the markerlights will primarily be used in helping the Riptide land those hits, and he will hit hard. Only 4 of those are required to make him ignore cover and shoot at BS5. Give him guide from the Farseer and he WILL hit that target. Riptides, with the proper support, is one of the most devastating units to use in the game.

Regardless of how high your opponents WS is in the assault phase, the highest roll you need to hit is 5, not six. Check the chart at the back of the rule book to verify. Seems like you were both cheating each other.

The Farsight Supplement can ally with Eldar, however in order to take any of The Eight, you must take Farsight as your WARLORD. So you can't take O'Vesa as part of the Tau allied detachment. If you want to use the commander with the markerdrones like I said above, it would be a good idea to use the rules from this supplement. Drop the drone squad, add three crisis suits with missile pods, target lock, and their own drones. Now you have a JSJ SCORING unit that supports your Riptide. Then, you can give your Riptide the Earth Caste Pilot Array to guarantee those Nova Charges. Although, as an IA Riptide, it is not necessary to Nova Charge unless you want to give it that 3++ or to shoot the SMS twice. What you can take instead is the Talisman of Arthas Moloch. This allows you to roll FOUR dice when rolling for Deny the Witch for EVERYONE WITHIN 12". The Farseer, being a Level 3 Psyker, will have a 4+ DTW for his unit versus any psyker barring another Farseer. You have a very high chance to pass a DTW when trying to roll a 4 or higher on four dice.

I know it's a lot to think about, just know that the IA Riptide is very effective at taking out Heavy infantry because of the high str, low AP, and the Large blast with the proper support. I RARELY use it to punch tanks, let your Wraithknight do that. Also, Tau can fill the Gunline or mobile strike force roles very well. Pick one that best augments your play style and roll with that.

It occurred to me that there is no point in putting the farseer with the riptide. He can't join a MC unless it's part of a unit, and without the drones the riptide is not a unit. This is why I was risking having drones on the riptide in the first place. So all the farseer would get was a 5+ cover save from standing behind the riptide, in which case he might as well just stay at the quad gun. I usually put the WK on one side and the riptide on the other, and both need to be withing 24" to receive guide or fortune (I feel like guide on wk is always really nice). On a side note, the inv save from the drones are actually quite nice when/if he tries to drop centurions in to kill the riptide. If it doesn't have a cover save, then without the drones the riptide will die instantly to 15x, TL 3+ to hit, wounds at 2+, and relying on 5+ inv save (unless I have gotten the nova shield up, but I won't know that he is targeting the riptide over the WK until it's too late). If he is firing at the riptide with drones then I don't even know what happens, as I think the grav guns wound on opponents armor saves and the drones don't have any armor save. At that point, the more drones the better, as then one drone can die without forcing a leadership test. That said, if I do have the nova shield going with fortune from farseer, that's still a 3+inv save with rerolls though (or 4+ with rerolls against drones), but I need to know that he is going to not target the WK, which is a 50/50 bet. My opponent could in theory run 2 ravens with 2 centurion squads as well, as I know he has the models. Then he could run one centurion squad against each of my MC.

This is getting very space marine specific though, and I wanted my list to be all comers.

I know Farsight can be used with Eldar, but can it be used with the Iyanden supplement? I haven't fully understood how allying with supplements work, as Iyanden can't ally with Eldar from what I understood.

Talking about farsight and The Eight is tempting me to run tau with eldar allies, which I understand is a better build anyway. My wallet is bleeding as it is though. The only bad thing about the scoring unit you are talking about is that it can get kind of expensive, even considering I can drop the fire warriors (and they have really grown on me lately, I thought they were stupid at first, but now I like their look and their weapons). However, I think I will give it a try in my next list just to test it out. I assume I still pick 2x marker drones per crisis suit in the squad?

I would use the Riptide more against infantry if I had any infantry to shoot at. So far I have only met armies using flyers, predators, dreadnoughts and centurions with 3+ inv save, so I almost never use the nova charge. I have been thinking the burst cannon could be better, but I hate relying on 6s to pen my opponent. Not so bad if I have TL and tank hunter on though. Still, it's 12 chances of gets hot, is only 36", and relies on getting nova charge in every round.

Needing 5s to pen in stead of 6 would have made a very different battle, but at that point it was almost midnight, I had killed everything else he had and we were tired of looking up all the rules for how independent characters and MC worked in close combat, so we just wanted to get the assault over with.

I see a lot of people worrying about deny the witch, and I don't understand why. I see almost all farseer builds spending 10 points on runes of warding, but my opponents librarians just haven't been that scary the few times he has actually gotten a malediction to throw at me. Are there some other army opponents where this is really good to have on a HQ?

Thanks for putting up with all my newb questions, I don't really have anyone here to ask these questions to and google only gets me so far.

The first point I want to address is teaming an ic with a Riptide. The rulebook states that an ic can never join a unit that can only ever consist of one model. A Riptide CAN take drones, so it can never only consist of one model. That's the current understanding on the internet and at most large tournaments. But if your lgs doesn't allow it, oh well.

If you were to do the farsight/O'Vesa bomb, the suits should not take drones. You want to keep that majority toughness at t6. But if you're referring to the missile+squader drone squad, then yes you do want about two drones per suit. However, you could easily roll with only 4.

If your Riptide is getting killed by centurians, then you're playing it too aggressively. The ion accelerator has a 72' range. I don't know the range on the grav guns, but there's no way in hell it's that large. Just sit back and blow them away.

To address the iyaden/farsight issue, I do not have knowledge on that matter. I will only ever have a farseer, wraithknight, and jetbikes.

But yeah, DTW is not much of a concern. I occasionallu play against a drop pod blood angels and sw list thats uses jaws. So that's my method of beating it.

Lastly, when arguing over needing 6's or 5's to pen, remeber this... 12 dice vs 3. You do run the risk of failing a nova charge, but if you want to increase your chances, get the earth caste pilot array which also allows you to roll 1's hit.

P.S. The best source on Tau information is on advancedtautactica.com. they're pretty brutal on noobs posting on their site, so just lurk for a while.

I have read a couple of the advancedtautactica posts via google, and have found them most helpful. I should head over there and read up. Thanks for the heads up!

The idea with using Iyanden is that you can make the wraithknigt warlord, and roll on the Iyanden warlord table which can have some nifty traits for him, including a free inv save, fnp or bonus to deny the witch.

The 72" range is fine on the short side of the table, but on the long side he can fly his storm raven inn 36", they deep strike within that line, they can reach any target 24" from there again, and that is enough to cover the whole table. So it depends on the set up.

The earth caste array is pretty nice, so it's definitely something I would take if going farsight. I was originally going to run him with the HBC, but I dropped it to make him the main centurion counter with his AP 2 gun. On average I would rend 1,5 shots every salvo with HBC, but the IA will reliably pen 1,875 of the time. I just wanted to increase the odds of one centurion dying, which could be enough to lessen the grav salvo to save my WK. However, that was the same session he started throwing multiwound HQ with 3+ inv save (sometimes with eternal warrior) into the mix to stand in the front and take all the damage. So I could go back to the original idea