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Hello I have returned to WH40K recently after 10 years. I'm an Eldar player and I've only recently played against SW and I will be facing Tau in a few days. This is the list I have been running against wolves with great success. But I will need to make changes to face Tau so any feedback is welcomed.

HQ
Avatar- Fast shot Crushing Blow
Farseer-SS of Anath'lan and SS

TROOP
15 Guardian Defender + Warlock
5 dire avengers + WS -TL SL, Shuricanon, and Holofields

FA
10 Warp Spiders - Exarc with Fast shot and spineret rifle
1 Vyper- ShuriCanon + Starcanon
4 Shining Spears- Exarc + H&R + StarLance

HS
4 Dark Reapers - Exarc with Fast shot and Tempest Launcher
Wraithlord- 1 Brightlance + 2 flamers + GG
VWSB -D-Cannon

This is actually almost all the models I own (I also have a unit of HB) I can proxy things but I would like not to abuse it.

The Avatar has been the MVP in every game. In 3 games has killed 3 cavalry wolf lords, 2 entire units of grey hunters, 2 land raiders and in the last game obliterated 15 blood claws with the runic priest character by himself. Sadly I know against Tau it has to go, it will never reach CC. I was thinking on substituting him for Baharroth with a 10 man unit of hawks to cause havoc on his gun line. their blind, grenade pack and 30 shots are bound to kill something on the turn they arrive. And him being T4, eternal warrior with 2+4++ is going to soak a fair amount of fire and be able to survive to charge on turn 2.

The Spiders have been devastating in every game I've played, from erasing an entire unit of terminators in one turn to severely cripple a big unit of TW cavalry. The shining spears also have caused havoc in the back lines cleaning longfangs, I think I should keep these two, they are strong and mobile units that can threaten crisis and even a riptide.

Farseer supported reapers also have proven very effective, If I roll well on the psychic power table they may be devastating and tough. I usually try to fish the good powers in divination (ignore cover), the eldar powers (fortune or doom) and telepathy (invisibility), since the primaris are also good.

Guardians are just there to secure back objectives (since I lack jetbikes) and a WS I think is mandatory nowadays.

The Wraithlord helps deterring anything getting to close to my deployment zone adding some heavy firepower, against Tau I may have to pay for the 2 lances. The Vyper and the VWSB are just there to annoy and diverse fire. I think I should keep the Vyper but the short range artillery will probably be useless against Tau.

Thanks for "reading" me, I wait for your wise counseling.

So the guardians as they are are kind of a point sink to just be sitting in the back. What I think would be better against tau is to let the dire avengers hold something in the back and put the guardians in the wave serpent (drop the warlock). I just played against tau last week and I had 10 guardians in a waveserpent with a starcannon platform. When they disembarked they took out a riptide from full wounds. They got slaughtered after that but they made their points back times 2. They make an excellent suicide squad and you probably shouldn't be placing objectives in your deployment zone anyways. Use you objectives to block them putting objectives in cover/ good spots.
Starcannons are good against tau. Be careful with your warp spiders because they are going to be a primary target. You might even want to deep strike them.
Like you said the VWSBs are kind of out of place against tau as they are too short ranged. If you proxy them as night spinners or vibro cannons they would be more useful. If you make them vibro cannons, you could give your farseer guide and prescience and have both squads re-roll their to hit rolls. That gives a pretty good chance for ap2 vibro shots on the heavier suits while also having your reapers do max damage against the lighter suits. I like the use of shining spears btw. You should be able to set up a nice second turn charge, lock them in combat for their turn and then charge again in the next turn.
The vyper is really meh, everything in the tau army can kill it EASILY. I'd drop it for more reapers if you have the models and if not then keep it near other high priority targets. If there is a tau unit that has no shooting options other than the vyper it will go down, so make them choose to shoot it over something else. I like the wraithlord avatar combo, it usually works better with a wraithknight as well but that would be really hard in 1500pts. Just remember that the wraithlord is mainly there to soak up shooting and not necessarily to bring the hurt. Tau don't have much str9+ so they will have to dedicate a lot of fire to take it down. keep him in front of the avatar for the first couple turns until the avatar runs by him.

Do you have any models other than the howling banshees? If not I think you've done pretty well with what you have

I like your guardian idea. My friend underestimated them the first time, 30 rending shoots BS 4 are able to kill anything in this game as his drop pod grey hunters understood. Unfortunately I only own the banshees and a swooping hawks squad with Baharroth, that is why I wanted to use them. I'm thinking on buying the Crimson hunter because I have no anti-air but I guess an aegis defense line with icarus lascannon would do to, used by a Reaper exarc 2 shots BS5 S9 ignoring jink sounds painful for everything but the Helldrake. I also want to buy some guardian jetbikes.

I'd also ditch the Vyper, while I love the model I rarely use it since it hardly ever does anything. I'd rather take 3 jetbikes, one with a shuriken cannon.

If you want to tailor the list I am not too sure about the Avatar. It doesn't synergize that well with the rest. Maybe you could replace it with a Farseer or Autarch on a Jetbike in a squad of Jetbike Guardians. Alternatively you could use the points to take more Reapers and put them into an Imperial Bunker (55 pts.). This makes them much more survivable against Tau and a real threat. It also gives your list a hard point against high S shots which will otherwise wear down your Wraithlord in one or two rounds. Generally you have to expect your WL to go down quickly without doing much if you do not have more targets in the same class. That could be either a bunker, or another WL or a vehicle.

Sorry, I didn't read that those are all of your models. Maybe it still helps you to anticipate where he will try to use his leverage or what you want to proxy.

You could stick the avatar on the ADL gun...
Guardians are bad here - they're 12" range, so out-ranged by everything the tau has. I'd run dire avengers over them, and put them in wave serpents (duh).

Not sure that reapers will do much here either.