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Yep. I think a better option would be to take a smaller missile star. It also has the virtue of not requiring the Farsight "tax". I've seen it in quite a few tau lists on the net lately.

It's Buffmander w/ Iridium Armor, Stim Injectors and all the good stuff attached to an allied Farsight Enclaves Commander w/ 2 missile pods and 3 Crisis suits with 2 missile pods, all with marker drones and target locks. The grand total is 8 TL BS5 marker drones and 16 TL S7 tank hunter/monster hunter ignores cover shots that can target up to 4 units (well 5 if you want the marker drones to target something else which you probably do).

It costs about half of what a farsight bomb does and doesn't rely on deep strike. It's pretty lethal when properly supported. That unit should eat 1-2 serpents and mark another. A Riptide with HBC/ECPA will mulch another granted that it has 4 marker light hits from the missile star. That's 12 S6 rending ignores cover shots re rolling 2's to hit.

Well, Farsight's other benefit is Deep Striking without scatter denying the enemy the ability to shoot your missilestar before it shoots and the ability to deploy it just right to take advantage of its range.

Or he could be attached to a different unit with fusion blasters as long as you have some markerlight support to negate the jink.

The buffmander + target locks is nice in as big a unit as you can find for him.

Broadsides can fire 12 STR 7 Missiles, 12 STR 5 missiles and their drones can fire off what 12 STR 7 also? So i wouldn't say "only". Hehehehee. But sure.

the problem with High Yield Missile Broadsides is they do have range issues. Against Wave Spam, the Broadsides are not terrible but if the Wave spam has any sense and is going first, their priority will be to move and put High Yield Broadsides out of range until it doesnt matter any more.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at more than 36", the serpents can only fire the shield and it's not twin linked without the scatter laser?

Before, I gave up on imperial counters to wave spam, I had considered exorcists with their 48" d6 S8 AP1 attacks. If the the shields are fired, then the AP1 becomes a thing. The problem is in a tournament setting, you can't field more than 4, whereas Tau counters are limited only by points costs.

You're not wrong. They will not be twin linked over 36" range.

But then why is the Eldar general firing at the Broadisde would be my question? There is likely a plethora of other targets. Move out of Broadside Range and fire at other things (and not just for First Blood but for tactically defensible reasons as well) until the WraithKnight can handle its grisly duty. Alternately, if the Broadsides are persistent and move up field (oh the bravery of Broadsides!) to get maybe one shot at glory, the WraithKnight overwhelms them sooner. if the enemy fires at nothing but WraithKnight to get into position wityh a Broadside unit and it all works out for the Broadsides...no guarantee but sure, lets dream... Then the Broadsides are still giving up most of their shooting for a couple rounds which if there are only 5, can be very significant and it gives the enemy an awful lot of time to see it coming and get the jump on em.

So for multiple reasons I much prefer the Railsides as legit threats because then the Wave Spam General cannot ignore the Broadside utterly and it is not so easy to kill even if they fire at it. It becomes a red herring the Tau Empire can use to blunt the enemy firepower while they move into better positions with EMP and the like but if the Eldar just give up on killing the Broadsides, it's probably goingto ignore cover and do some damage with markerlight help. Catch 22.

I think Railsides still have a good place amongst Tau empire forces and The Wave spam General has to respect the High Yield version and stay away while they can.

I saw someone mention the Steel Host earlier in the thread so I thought I would share my experience with it. I had fought a battle against a similar list. It was 100% spam but it was pretty close. Here is the list I used.

Pask w/Punisher, Camo Netting
2x Executioner

3x LRBT
3x Vanquisher w/lascannon
3x Eradicator

Hydra

Total:1850

Pretty straightforward list, with different variants to cover different threats.

The Eradicators along with the Vanquishers helped me greatly. I was fortunate enough to get first turn, and having PE on the Vanq's was awesome. Each time I popped a tank, the Eradicator squadron was easily able to wipe the squad.
I swear the Eradicator was designed with Eldar in mind haha.

It was a good victory on my part, but I'm sure a rare defeat for my opponent as it's difficult to run into a person that has enough Russ' to field a Steel Host list.

assuming that the list now only has one wraithknight, wave serpents have scatter then 2 scout squads, cheap hq +3 landraiders w lascannons& allied hq+troop with landraider.
4 landraiders he cant hurt with serpent fire (unless he took bright lances) if i kill the night i can camp at objective until the last turn.

 hiveof_chimera wrote:
assuming that the list now only has one wraithknight, wave serpents have scatter then 2 scout squads, cheap hq +3 landraiders w lascannons& allied hq+troop with landraider.
4 landraiders he cant hurt with serpent fire (unless he took bright lances) if i kill the night i can camp at objective until the last turn.

Almost all Serpent spam lists have 5 fire dragons in at least one maybe two of the serpent hulls. If not, then it's definitely two Wraith Knights. And the 'if' of killing a Wraith Knight before it can do anything to you with 4 land raiders is a very big if. Even if all 4 Land Raiders are godhammer pattern, 8 TL lascannon shots will take at least 2 turns to kill one, and by then it's bearing down on you.

 astro_nomicon wrote:

 hiveof_chimera wrote:
assuming that the list now only has one wraithknight, wave serpents have scatter then 2 scout squads, cheap hq +3 landraiders w lascannons& allied hq+troop with landraider.
4 landraiders he cant hurt with serpent fire (unless he took bright lances) if i kill the night i can camp at objective until the last turn.

Almost all Serpent spam lists have 5 fire dragons in at least one maybe two of the serpent hulls. If not, then it's definitely two Wraith Knights. And the 'if' of killing a Wraith Knight before it can do anything to you with 4 land raiders is a very big if. Even if all 4 Land Raiders are godhammer pattern, 8 TL lascannon shots will take at least 2 turns to kill one, and by then it's bearing down on you.

but this list in particular does not contain Fd's nor 2 wraithknights, so whilst 8 lascannons will take me two turns to kill 1 wratihknight, he only has one so i can sit at the back of the field until i kill it. then proceed unharmed by str 7/6. i also believe there is a landraider with immunity to lances on forge world which i could swap out to counter any lances he may have on his serpents.

BTW i play eldar this is NOT my army.

Lets keep focused. We are talking about the lists You USE REGULARLY going against THIS Wave Spam list. Not some "yeah but X is invalid because Y...stuff.

Because honestly if YOUR list doesnt REGULARLY use 4 land raiders or what have you then don't bring it up. Honesty is important fopr this exercize.

If you really do commit 1000 points to Land Raiders in your list, cool.

Just wanna stay focused because its pretty darn lazy for us to sit here and say "WraithKnight? Well 10 STR 20 AP 3 shots". Whats the point of saying it if youre not currently actually DOING that kind of list in tournies, NOW?

Focus!

Happy to be focused Jancoran. Were you still planning on Theory hammering the eldar for my thought game?

Sure. Seaphoenix, I did respond to everyones first move i beleive. But happy to carry things out