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Hi everyone,

I'm having a lot of trouble beating my friend's Eldar. They move too fast, are too tough, too shooty, and generally run over my Tau.

His list (Iyanden Eldar, 1750pts) is roughly this
(I don't have the codex so hopefully I'm getting the names right)

Farseer on Jetbike
3 Jetbikes
5 Wraithguard (with the flamers), + Warlock
Waveserpent with all the twinlinked everythings
5 Wraithguard
Waveserpent with all the twinlinked everythings
Nightspinner (?), has a torrent weapon + can turbo-boost and shoot once per game
Wraithknight w/ big nasty lances

Allied Dark Eldar
Astrubael Vect (seizes on 4+)
10 Wyches
Raider
3 dudes with blasters
Venom



I can field nearly anything, but this is what I've been running lately:
Commander, 2x Missiles, Iridium, Shield Drone, Target Lock, PENC
Ethereal, BSF

Riptide, Interceptor, FNP, SMS, Ion Accelerator
3x Crisis Suits w/2x Plasma

6 Pathfinders
6 Pathfinders
2x Piranha w/ Fusion

12 Fire Warriors
6 Fire Warriors
6 Fire Warriors
6 Fire Warriors

Hammerhead, Longstrike, Railgun
3x Broadsides, HYMP, SMS, Interceptor
Sniper Drones, 9 Drones 2 Spotters

What changes can/should I make to my list to make this army easier to fight?

Well first off you need to pop his transports or it's game over. Seen as they are all av12 or less skimmers then skyrays fit perfectly in this role. 6 str 8 missles that fire at bs5 and ignore cover (ie jink saves) are immense for combating wave serpents. Also I would switch your 2 hqs for 2 fireblades. They work great with pathfinders because they have split fire they can each boost a pathfinder squad to bs4 with their markerlight meaning you get more hits every turn with your pathfinders, while still boosting the amount of shots your fw's pump out. Also I would take 2 squads of 12 fw's and drop the extra 6. This means you will be maximising the effectiveness of the fireblades extra shots. To fit in the skyrays I would drop the hammerhead and sniper drones. Also if you have enough points left I would try and add some crisis suits with 2 missle pods in for extra help in transport popping. Your skyrays want to focus on the wave serpents as they hold the nasty stuff. So you need other units popping the venoms and raiders to stop the witches tearing you a new one.

Broadsides are far better against Wave Serpents than Sky rays and Broadsides kill what comes out well too. A Skyray that gets 2 ML hits gets 4 S8 hits glancing on a 4+ doing 2 Hull points. Skyray is then useless (well not useless but you get my point, particularly as he has no flyers you'll need those sky firing MLs against). Broadsides put on average 12 S7 hits on a Serpent that's 4 Hull points.

I would go one of 2 routes against that list: double Mark'o supported by 3 units of 3 Broadsides. Or 2 units of 3 Broadsides with a Skyray. The Broadsides also hurt the Knight through volume fire.

A stim Riptide is also useful. He can kill a wraith unit in a single shot and can hold up the Wraithknight in combat.

Something like this:

Commander: 2 Missile pods, TL, DC, Marker drone 140
Commander: as above 140

Riptide: Ion, stims, EWO, fusion 225
Crisis team: 2 plasmarifles 52

7 Firewarriors
7 Firewarriors
6 Firewarriors
6 Firewarriors

Marker drone team 56
Marker drone team 56

3 Broadsides: HYMP, EWO, 6 Missile drones 282
3 Broadsides: as above
3 Broadsides: as above

Keep the missiles at the front of the Broadsides. You should be able to kill both Wave Serpents and both DE vehicles in the first turn between the Commanders and 2 units of broadsides (FWs support against DE vehicles if necessary). Then choose which else to kill with the other Missileside unit and the Riptide. You can kill the Night spinner or torrent the Knight or concentrate onthe Wraithguard (decent chance to aat least nueter each unit).

The Broadsides without ML support put nearly 11 wounds on Wraithguard (i.e. about 3-4 dead Wraithguard). With 2 ML hits that goes to 17 and the squad evaporates.

Against the Wraithknight you'll need plenty of shots but 1 Mark'o and 2 Broadside units concentrating on him puts 43 S7 hits giving 14 wounds and 4.7 failed saves then the SMS do 1.3 unsaved wounds killing him in 1 round.

See the only reason why I suggested skyrays is because I can have 2 for every broadside unit with points left over for additional units, don't get me wrong, I love misslesides but I never pay nearly 300 points because that's a lot of points gone in one assault, (more expensive than a land raider)/ordnance blast at str 8 or more. Anyway up to you dude but I think variety is the spice of life


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also for the wraith knight calc you did you used 700 points worth of models to take down something worth a third, if that.....

SpankingApe wrote:
See the only reason why I suggested skyrays is because I can have 2 for every broadside unit with points left over for additional units, don't get me wrong, I love misslesides but I never pay nearly 300 points because that's a lot of points gone in one assault, (more expensive than a land raider)/ordnance blast at str 8 or more. Anyway up to you dude but I think variety is the spice of life


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also for the wraith knight calc you did you used 700 points worth of models to take down something worth a third, if that.....

Nearer 800 points but their is no 300 point unit in the game (other than a Prescienced Moritat) that can kill a Wraithknight in a single shooting phase. The problem with Skyrays compared to Broadsides is they kill a Wave Serpent between 2 of them and then you're done.

First off. You need the buffmander.

Commander - 160pts
- Puretide chip, CnC node, Msss, and iridium armour.

Now put him in a unit of 3 broadsides with target lock (better then split fire) with 2 drones each behind an aegis.

Add two skyrays with black sun filters.

For troops take devil fish with gun drones and leave the ethereal in there. The gun drones can block and choke up assault areas and in return fire 3 pinning shots each (thanks to the ethereal).

You should be able to drop 2 serpents and the raider without breaking a sweat.

Not true at all. You only need one set of skyray missles to kill a serpent. I always take them in pairs for this reason below.

Both skyrays shoot their markers at the wave serpent. Scoring 3 hits. One of the skyrays then use one of the counters to increase it's own bs to 5, then it uses the other 2 to ignore cover. Then it fires all it's seekers at the wave serpent scoring 5 hits. Now let's say it's hitting front armour for this example, obviously you don't all the time as your skyrays are on opposite sides so one of them will have side armour, but well say front anyway. On 5 dice on average I will score 2.5 4+ rolls to glance. One of them being a pen so having an additional effect. No jink/cover allowed. Majority of cases it's straight dead, seen as you will be hitting side armour with one of your rays. Now you dont need the second Skyray to fire it's markers. You can gain the 3rd hit from a fireblade, which is my fav choice as they are bs5. So he shoots first. Skyray then shoots it's markers at bs5. 2 hits scored etc etc. so saying it takes 12 seeker missles to kill a wave serpent is very untrue. This is a tired and tested method and it revolves around a multitude of units synergising together.

Do you know the Wave Serpent rules? Front and side is AV12 and any pens become glances on a 2+. So you many kill that Serpent but most of the time it will survive.

2 MLs ignore cover so in the Fireblade scenario (taking up a HQ slot that could instead be something good like a buffmander or Mark'o) you get 4 hits from your 6 missiles and strip 2 Hull points. Also if you're firing the FB first leaving his marker on the Serpent nets you more hits on average (1.67 up to 2.33, assuming the FB hits which isn't guaranteed) and increases you're chances of getting at least 2 hits from 70% to 89%.

You can kill a serpent with a Sky ray but he needs a little more ML support an luck. He's then useless. The Broadsides kill a Serpent a turn and then butcher the contents. Sky rays are goodbut not great against Eldar without flyers. They are great in a Farsun bomb list or any list that needs help with alpha striking and AA marker lights. Against this Eldar list he does particularly need either.

Broadsides are the best unit in the codex after the Farsun bomb. Rely on them and you won't go far wrong. Not many armies can deal with 9 broadsides with EWO.

Use the new bullcrap formation where you take 6 broadsides and a riptide and they all get tankhunters free. oh and preferred enemy space marines. You literally just have to announce that you are taking the formation, there is no points increase at all. Its stupid.

 Orock wrote:
Use the new bullcrap formation where you take 6 broadsides and a riptide and they all get tankhunters free. oh and preferred enemy space marines. You literally just have to announce that you are taking the formation, there is no points increase at all. Its stupid.

Stupid but a massive win in this kind of scenario

Just whack that into my proposed list and there isn't really any point in rolling the dice. That is stupidly overpowered.

 FlingitNow wrote:
Just whack that into my proposed list and there isn't really any point in rolling the dice. That is stupidly overpowered.

naaah. All good not cheesy at all

Let's take the two best units in the best codex and make them better for no extra points... It makes no sense. I'm not one that ever complains about OP (I invented Purifier Rhino spam in 5th), but this is just dumb as there is no reason to not take it in every Tau army. Perhaps twice.