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Hi guys,

I have a game on sunday, I'm running Eldar, my opponent is with Tau. It's likely to be crisis suits, devilfish fire warriors, hammerheads, riptide.

What are good Eldar units to run against such a list?

Is it worth me exchanging the usual scatter lasers for bright lances to counter all the armour?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
More details - list will be something like:

2x farseer OR eldrad
2x guardians, in wave serpents
1x dire avengers in wave serpents
1x fire dragons in ws
1x crimson hunter
3x fire prism

all vehicles with holofields?

1500pts.
I'd run jetlock, but I don't have the models :(

Do you have any hornets or war walkers? S8 Ap2 works great on all manner of suits. And be sure to take the Exarch upgrade on the crimson hunters. I'd also consider dropping one of the tanks alltogether and maybe taking a Night spinner instead of one of the Fire Prisms. Also look into dark reapers as their weapons ignore jinks, which is great vs Tau vehicles. Strategically I'd look to take out his source of markerlights asap, as they can take the jink saves away from your vehicles.

The army you've got should do absolutely fine to be honest

Swooping hawks and spiders are amazing against my tau, plus warlocks and seers handing out misfortune.

War walkers can be rough, 2 bright lances will wreck face.

Lol your list is pretty strong at 1500.

Unless your 100% sure hes taking lots of AV don't take BL on serpents. You can force wounds on the riptide, though without marker lights it won't do jack.

Yeah your list is fine. You could go cheap by dropping the farseers down to a single spiritseer(as you can't cast from transports). Maybe even an autarch for reserve manipulation on the Hunter.

sorry guys- didn't realise how far off I was on points! (was posting at work). It was indeed a strong list for 1500 (being about 1800 lol).

The core is:
farseer+jetbike
2x 10 guardians + WS (SL, HF)
10 dire avengers + WS (SL, HF)
crimson hunter
fire prism (HF)
fire prism (HF)

which comes to 1290, so I have 210 remaining.
Torn between:
a) farseer #2 (though prescience doesn't do much here)
b) prism #3
c) 5 dark reapers w/exarch +starshot (rangefinders! I know he will run disruption pods - but fragile and expensive.)
d) dragons in a transport - would need to drop something
e) wraithlord w/SL and brightlance (love the model).

Id take the wraithlord. Nice little distraction.

zerosignal wrote:sorry guys- didn't realise how far off I was on points! (was posting at work). It was indeed a strong list for 1500 (being about 1800 lol).

The core is:
farseer+jetbike
2x 10 guardians + WS (SL, HF)
10 dire avengers + WS (SL, HF)
crimson hunter
fire prism (HF)
fire prism (HF)

which comes to 1290, so I have 210 remaining.
Torn between:
a) farseer #2 (though prescience doesn't do much here)
b) prism #3
c) 5 dark reapers w/exarch +starshot (rangefinders! I know he will run disruption pods - but fragile and expensive.)
d) dragons in a transport - would need to drop something
e) wraithlord w/SL and brightlance (love the model).

Fire prisms wont do super well vs tau, warning you now. With remaining points, i would get the fragon serpent.

pm713 wrote:Id take the wraithlord. Nice little distraction.

Nice little distraction that doesnt do anything..... And is super slow

Yeah, Tau can kite a Wraithlord easily. You want high S ap 3 to instagib suits - I'd second a Fragon Serpent. Send it after Suits. Make sure to pop drones with small arms before firing the Fragons.

Fire prisms are probably the only thing in the eldar dex that i could give two BEEPs about. I just did a 2on1 5k list against eldar (2500pts tau + nidz friend vs 5k eldar) and he had 3 prisms focused on my army the whole game. i didnt care, in fact i ignored them and they didnt do much outside accidentally take out firewarriors when he missed my suits/vehicles.

My biggest issue with eldar is either backfield waveserpent spam cheese, since thats usually WAY more firepower than i can field thats that kinda reach, or 1-2 heavy wraithcannon wraithknights. God i hate wraithknights lol. Seems like every time that thing aims at a riptide he rolls a 6 and im banking 5 wounds on a 5+ save lol (or 4+ if i had a ruin to hide behind)

Given your remaining points, i'd say go for the wraithlord. Its not as painful as the wraithknight but its just as hard to knock out for me.....dont think ive ever killed one actually.

Nightspinners. Lots and lots of nightspinners. Means that there's no-way to hide on the table and instaglibs as well as forces pinning checks. Also superb for burning Kroot out of hiding and hits all tanks on the side armour (Due to barrage) in it's various fire modes.

So 4+ to glance HHs, exacty the same as brightlances but far more useful. If he wants to sit back and form a gunline then the spinners make him pay (Especially if guided/ prescienced) and will force him to come to you, which as a short ranged eldar player is something you'd like to see happen.

Your MAIN goal is to use your Serpent Shields to kill off the small amount of marker lights he will bring. Once those are gone you could actually sit back and take pot shots with your Serpent Shields killing Fire Warriors hiding in cover if you can Draw LOS to them.

Stompzilla wrote:
Nightspinners. Lots and lots of nightspinners. Means that there's no-way to hide on the table and instaglibs as well as forces pinning checks. Also superb for burning Kroot out of hiding and hits all tanks on the side armour (Due to barrage) in it's various fire modes.

So 4+ to glance HHs, exacty the same as brightlances but far more useful. If he wants to sit back and form a gunline then the spinners make him pay (Especially if guided/ prescienced) and will force him to come to you, which as a short ranged eldar player is something you'd like to see happen.

That's actually not a bad idea. I was thinking of the Fire Prisms as tank-busters, which are also not bad against suits, but the Nightspinner is probably better as we tend to run lots of terrain and he's going to be hiding a lot...Plus the points I save mean I squeeze in the fire dragons, which might not be a bad unit for the farseer to join (he can use his psychic abilities on the unit in the transport, right?). Guide the dragons, jump out, pop stuff...

I'm expecting my opponent to run crisis commander plus bodyguard, 2 units of fire warriors in devilfish, 2 hammerheads, riptide, and that crappy bomber.

My list then:
Farseer
5 Fire Dragons +WS
10 Dire Avengers +WS
10 Guardians +WS
10 Guardians +WS
Crimson Hunter Exarch
2 Nightspinner

All wave serpents with scatter lasers, all tanks with holofields.
Thoughts?

No markerlights?

 Arbiter wrote:
You can force wounds on the riptide, though without marker lights it won't do jack.

You don't know how riptides work, do you?

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 Arbiter wrote:
You can force wounds on the riptide, though without marker lights it won't do jack.

You don't know how riptides work, do you?

He has a point, at least about the Markerlights. Unless it's got a Buffmander hanging out with it, a single BS3 Ordnance blast isn't too reliable, hence my above post regarding the lack of markerlights in the list.

Still, a lone Riptide will eat bullets at the very least. Add a Buffmander or Markerlights and it's an entirely different ball game.

I do want to know about this magical method of forcing wounds onto a Riptide though. Didn't know "Ignores Invulnerable saves" weapons were still a thing

My list then:
Farseer
5 Fire Dragons +WS
10 Dire Avengers +WS
10 Guardians +WS
10 Guardians +WS
Crimson Hunter Exarch
2 Nightspinner

Well, I'd make some tweaks.
The Farseer should have a jetbike for more flexible support.
Moreover, I'd drop the Nightspinners and add some Warwalkers with scatterlasers (outflanking if necessary).

If I were playing Tau, I'd prioritise the Dragons, then pop transports. I don't know about the Crimson Hunter, but assuming it has AT I would then target that.

Once they're gone, there's nothing that could reliably damage the Riptide or Hammerheads. I know it's a tough ask for weapons that reliably damage a 'Tide, but you need more high S low AP weapons IMHO. You've got rending out the wazoo, problem is that it doesn't mean anything against AV13. Once the Serpents are gone, I don't need to worry about anything that can damage the Hammerheads, because there isn't anything (barring the flyer, which can be difficult to line up.)

I'd add something with Lances of some kind. Your opponent has a lot of tanky stuff for a relatively low pointed game.

 liquidjoshi wrote:
If I were playing Tau, I'd prioritise the Dragons, then pop transports. I don't know about the Crimson Hunter, but assuming it has AT I would then target that.

Once they're gone, there's nothing that could reliably damage the Riptide or Hammerheads. I know it's a tough ask for weapons that reliably damage a 'Tide, but you need more high S low AP weapons IMHO. You've got rending out the wazoo, problem is that it doesn't mean anything against AV13. Once the Serpents are gone, I don't need to worry about anything that can damage the Hammerheads, because there isn't anything (barring the flyer, which can be difficult to line up.)

I'd add something with Lances of some kind. Your opponent has a lot of tanky stuff for a relatively low pointed game.

Well, I battled Tau a few times with my mech Eldar in local tournaments and never had too much problems with them.
First use the Serpents to get rid off the marker lights.
The Riptides could be ignored in the first place.
As said, the Fire Warriors are rather dangerous once they get out. I used them once to kill the Broadsides while they struggled vs Riptides due to bad rolls.
Warwalkers are absolutely great since they can outflank and with their scatter lasers make a mess.

Scatter walkers just get eaten up by there entire army. even Fire warriors can kill them pretty easily. Then hope you can kill 210 points of stuff before they get wiped by a ~150 point troop squad.

So after a few weeks delay, we're scheduled to play tomorrow.

Finally I have settled on this list:
Farseer
Farseer, Singing Spear
5 Fire Dragons in WS
10 Guardians in WS
10 Guardians in WS
Crimson Hunter (Exarch)
Fire Prism
Fire Prism
Fire Prism

I am expecting to play against:
Buffmander with marker drones
Crisis team
Riptide
2x Fire Warrior squad in Devilfish
Broadsides with HYMP
2x Hammerhead
... or thereabouts.

hence, lots of AT. I decided on prisms over nightspinners in the end because of the Lance and the AP2 settings. I also have fire dragons to suicide against the suits or a hammerhead as needed - I will probably put the seer with singing spear in with them in a wave serpent, cast guide on the unit, jump out, melt/spear tough things... seems like a plan

Looks good.

Good luck and remember marker lights are key!