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I'm just getting in 40K at the moment. I have purchased the rulebook and have borrowed both of the new Tau and Eldar codexes, and I'm having a tonne of trouble deciding which army to stick with.

I love the aesthetics of both and I'm totally indifferent in this aspect of the armies. I also like the Fluff of both armies.

I like mechanics of the Eldar such as popping out of cover taking shots and back into cover. But at the same time, having the ability to takes tons of shots at enemies with an Etheral + FWs is awesome too.

Can some of you more experienced players help me out by providing some input. I'm totally ok if these are not considered "beginner armies". I always like a challenge and would like an army that I can grow into. I want an army that will challenge me early on but can become a competitive army as I learn to play the game better.

Any feedback?

P.S. The one differentiating factor that I can think of is that Tau have the XV104 Riptides, which quite simply, look freaking sick. Kinda reminds me of playing Zone of the Enders back in the day

Easy, take both and ally them!

I'm totally ok if these are not considered "beginner armies"

Theres no problem there, Tau and Eldar are considered OP cheesefest ezmode right now - and regardless of whether this analysis is correct (hint: it is) you'll find that they are pretty newb friendly armies.

Tau especially.

Well. If you are looking for a challenge you are looking in the wrong direction.

Let me be a bit more clear.

If there is challenge with these armies, that's great but not necessary. I just want an army that will perform well and allow me to be flexible in order to adjust to the strategies of other armies.

And another reason why I'm choosing between these two is, no offense to the SM players, but there just seems to be too many SM players, especially at my local hobby store. I want to play with an army that is not too mainstream (don't mean to sound like a hipster haha).

Pick the one you like the models of more.

Both are very "sci-fi" looking, but tau are more ...."hard" sf and eldar a bit more space opera, of science/fantasy.

I'm totally ok if these are not considered "beginner armies". I always like a challenge and would like an army that I can grow into. I want an army that will challenge me early on but can become a competitive army as I learn to play the game better.

Also, regarding this comment....yeah, I hate to say it but neither of these armies fit that criteria.

In fact, I always suggest new players stay away from what ever the "top" armies are at the moment, as they can be too forgiving to mistakes and other issues.

I have seen the phenomenon many times in 5th edition, where new players had started with a top tier army, and honestly had not really learned to hone their skills as much, and when those armies fell a bit behind....they thought the armies "sucked" ...but in reality...they had just enabled bad practices in play.

I was lucky enough to have my first couple of armies below the power curve, and while this was quite challenging for quite some time, it forced me to be a better player, and when I did play better armies....the game was almost easy.

Now, saying all of that - if you do indeed decide to go with tau or eldar (I prefer tau....but hey, they were my first and favorite army...) then try to stay away from "competitive' or power builds.

Most new armies have builds like this - these are just two of the newest....

Best of luck and have fun!!!

Doesnt matter what you pick,
you will end up with both...
and I couldnt think of 2 better armies to start with

I was not aware that these armies were considered really good now. I chose them mainly for their looks and fluff.

 thatPUNKdude wrote:
I was not aware that these armies were considered really good now. I chose them mainly for their looks and fluff.

Then go with one of them!!!

Just avoid any "power builds".

Both are excellent armies, and if you stay away from the OP combos, they do indeed support tons of option and builds - they are both excellent books (most of the 6th ed books are really good).

Go with Orks. Or Kroot.

I agree with those who say go with what models you like best.

How about Eldar with The Tau Firebase Support Cadre?

I would go Eldar. I think their models are much better, and I think their codex will stand the test of time longer.

When people say they are OP what they actually mean is that these dexes contain the specific lists that are dominating the weird tourney microcosm, for general play they are both just fine.

I think Eldar would be best to help you learn and improve your game the most. Tau are fairly static and point and click doing just a little jumping around. Eldar armies can be fragile or tough, fast or static, psychic heavy or pure martial, mechanized or footsloggers and everything in between. The diversity of their troops ans special rules means you can learn a lot about the game from playing them.

They were my first army from way back and I've never regretted it. There's always a new army combination or style I find myself wanting to try out in my next game.

Avoid Riptide spam with Tau and Waveserpent spam with Eldar and nobody will give you too much grief.

For me, Eldar have far, far, far more builds available to them, while Tau only have a few good builds outside of Triptide and Broadside spam. Both armies can be very mobile (but Tau typically don't get played that way).

 thatPUNKdude wrote:
I just want an army that will perform well and allow me to be flexible in order to adjust to the strategies of other armies.

Given that statement, go with Eldar. Tau are great, but they aren't nearly as flexible as Eldar unless you add allies. Tau's basic strategy is "shoot them till they're dead", which rarely changes. Eldar have more options available to them.

That said, my Tau are still incredibly fun to play.

Well, I'm a bit biased since I play Eldar and not Tau or Eldar allied with Tau.

Go Eldar for the sheer flexibility of builds and strategies you can counter.
Besides I see more often the Tau not getting games and there for the fun out of their purchases, but I've yet to see someone playing Eldar not get a game.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Well. If you are looking for a challenge you are looking in the wrong direction.

No, he'll be challenged by other Tau/Eldar and Demons.

As others have said, pick the army with the models you think are coolest. If you have cool models, you'll want to assemble and paint them. (Eldar look way cooler than Tau IMO, but this is a simple matter of preference)

Any army will be challenging at first, and both Tau and Eldar have plenty in their codexes to build upon, though Eldar have the advantage there.

One more vote for picking the army who's aesthetics you like the most.
If you love a model, you will find a way to make them work on the tabletop.

Eldar does offer more in the sense of variable playstyle, they viable shooting and close combat options. You will never run out of new lists to try with Eldar.
Tau can look into battle brothers for some CC goodness.

In the future you might want to ally your army with a battle brother, so this is a small consideration as well.
Eldar have Tau and Dark Eldar as brothers, Tau have Eldar and Space Marines.

Tau have cool mechsuits.

......tfg

I'm gonna add another vote for Eldar since their codex has great internal balance and thus there are a lot of neat things you can try out with it. The Tau codex has some units which are just sub-par like the fliers and vespid whereas with the exception of Howling Banshees pretty much everything in the Eldar dex is decent if you play to its strengths. Additionally, the Eldar playstyle is more transferrable to other armies in the future - Tau will teach you to shoot well whereas Eldar will teach you to play well.

Eldar also have cooler super-heavies in my opinion, if you decided to play some Escalation. Tau affordable super-heavies consist of two variants of one aircraft. Eldar have a couple of different tanks and some titans, plus flyers.

Well it was mentioned before, but the OP didn't say anything.

How about both armies? With Allies, you can play both at the same time. Do Taudar one day. Eldau the next day. Also just Tau, and Eldar, so you can play 4 different types of armies.

The only thing stopping you from doing both is, money.

So how about it? Why not start both? Who says you have to start with one now, in days of Allies.

I have both just starting Eldar though. I probably won't use Eldar as a stand alone army. I think tau are much more shooty and they can jump shoot jump with the jumppacks.

I think that the tau have cool models but their coolest models (vespids, kroot, krootox, etc) are the least useful haha.

Eldar have really awesome models with more variety but a lot of fine cast stuff (scorpions, fire dragons, warp spiders) so can get expensive if you buy lots of those. They also can need a lot of vehicles but same with tau with broadsides and stuff.

Just take a look at some basic army lists, find out what you want to use, make your own list, see how much each army would cost you if that's important.
Both are cool armies, comes down to what models you like (if your going to paint which ones are easier which is tau, Eldar can be hard) and how much you want to spend.

Hey everyone. Thank you very much for all the replies. I think I'm going to go with Eldar as they do seem like the more flexible army, giving me the most variety in game play. That being said, I will look into using the Eldar as allies, allowing me to play with both great looking armies.

Also, Merry Christmas everybody

Another vote for Eldar. Just , as others have advised, shy away from the really OP lists. Eldar are more flexible, mobile better looking and fit better into the 40k realm. Tau are good if you don't care to learn the movement or assaulting rules.

Honestly, there are very few Tau builds that are actually fun to play against.

Play orks. People will want to play you just for a change of pace. And you wont have to be called a scrub bandwaggoner.

I run Tau, Because I dont care for keeping track of psychic powers and their modifiers. Overwatch with tau is nice. And I'm doing an Invader Zim theme. Eldar do have some really nice tricks though.

Invader Zim Tau? Nice.