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Hey all. So I've been eyeballing getting back into 40k for a while, wither either the Eldar or Tau start collecting boxes. I'll mostly just be playing with a couple of friends - one has Blood Angels and the other has Space Marines. Given that none of us are into competitive gaming (but we're also not incompetent - I don't think anyone's going to take devastators with four different weapons, etc), we've been thinking of maybe just sticking to CAD, no LoW, nor formations, and fortifications only if pre-arranged.

Maybe I've just been reading The Internet too much, but it seems like without some kind of agreement of this sort (and assuming merely competent list building) that things can get very un-fun fast. I guess I'm just interested in successful steps anyone else has taken to produce a fun game for the occasional evening where nobody feels like they're screwed before deployment, especially between Eldar and Blood Angels. The Space Marines chap hasn't really bought stuff since 4th or 5th either, so it's not like he's packing grav or centurions either.

You want eldar. The Tau codex is extremely one dimensional and you'll end up either getting stomped because you're playing it wrong, or else, you'll end up playing...well...like Tau.

The eldar codex, however, facilitates different styles of play even without spamming scatter bikes, warp spiders and wraithknights.

 Traditio wrote:
The Tau codex is extremely one dimensional and you'll end up either getting stomped because you're playing it wrong, or else, you'll end up playing...well...like Tau.

This is not true at all. Ignore Traditio's opinion on the Tau, he has this weird belief that all Tau players are some kind of WAAC TFGs, especially if they bring any Riptides/LoW/etc. The Tau can have some balance issues (especially if formations are included) but there's plenty of room to build a Tau army that can win without getting into the severe balance problems.

I'd say Eldar. Nearly every unit in the codex is good, or at the very least good enough so that in a casual game you won't feel like you've shot yourself in the foot for taking them.

Both can be done, just avoid spamming the powerhouses, avoid formations formations / detachments and use unusual / sup-par weapon load outs. Just swapping out the magnetized weapons is an quick and easy trick that can make a huge difference.

Both can work in a casual setting, but you need to keep a light hand on the throttle. Both have the potential to be bonkers overpowered with very little effort. Sometimes even if you are just putting together a fluffy list. If you look at a classic Saim-Hann or Illadyn craftworld list, you get a lot of game breaking stuff, just by adhering to the lore.

Know your opponents, and what level they are working at. Put together a list powered to match. It can be done if everyone in your group is on the same page. And if you are mainly going to be playing against a small group of friends, and are willing to talk, this should not be a problem.

With no lords of war or formations, really all you need to do is not load up too much with one unit.

Any of them are good, it becomes a problem if you shove too much into one list.

Eldar has benefit in that it can take dedicated CC troops. Which in itself is balancing act as you aren't bringing in generally more powerful shooty units while allowing you to take part in CC part as well. Most of Tau stinks in CC(all?).

Avoid spamming scat bikes(not taking shuriken cannon for every bike helps. Mistake from GW to drop the 1/3 limit. Why not all assault cannon terminators or all melta gun tactical marines while you are at it?), wraithknight, seer council with rerollable saves and warp spiders and you are on good way to ensuring bit more sane game.

tneva82 wrote:
Eldar has benefit in that it can take dedicated CC troops. Which in itself is balancing act as you aren't bringing in generally more powerful shooty units while allowing you to take part in CC part as well. Most of Tau stinks in CC(all?).

Avoid spamming scat bikes(not taking shuriken cannon for every bike helps. Mistake from GW to drop the 1/3 limit. Why not all assault cannon terminators or all melta gun tactical marines while you are at it?), wraithknight, seer council with rerollable saves and warp spiders and you are on good way to ensuring bit more sane game.

Riptides and Stormsurges are good at CC.

" Why not all assault cannon terminators"

Yes, why not?

tneva82 wrote:
Eldar has benefit in that it can take dedicated CC troops. Which in itself is balancing act as you aren't bringing in generally more powerful shooty units while allowing you to take part in CC part as well. Most of Tau stinks in CC(all?).

Avoid spamming scat bikes(not taking shuriken cannon for every bike helps. Mistake from GW to drop the 1/3 limit. Why not all assault cannon terminators or all melta gun tactical marines while you are at it?), wraithknight, seer council with rerollable saves and warp spiders and you are on good way to ensuring bit more sane game.

I agree with this. Stick to the rules above, and your Eldar will be far less overpowering than the internet says they are. Their melee units are even good in a more casual setting, which it sounds this absolutely is.

Tau generally suck in CC, apart from the big huge suits like the stormsurge and riptide, but if you're playing casual, you'd probably want to avoid these units anyway. This can make tau slightly 1d as they blow their opponent away if they're winning and get hacked to bits if they're losing. If you like shootings things and jumping about though, Tau are definitely your army!

Obviously my bias is showing, but I would pick Eldar, as they can do a lot more different things than Tau can, making them seem more interesting to me. I don't want to sell Tau short though, as they have some lovely models and you can't call them *insert fantasy race* in SPACE!

In their last update, people found Eldar generally dropped in effectiveness across the board except for the few builds that people curse today; in contrast the new Tau codex, if you ignore formations, saw only a few buffs across the not-terrible-but-not-popular... For better or worse it's still largely the same codex that terrorized the CAD armies of 6th edition.

Of the two, I think the line between 'painfully weak' and 'an overwhelming avalanche' exists for both armies, but is probably easier to straddle with the Tau.

It's complicated further on that your friends are playing one relatively good incarnation of the Space Marines and one relatively bad one. You could build an army that's incapable of beating vanilla marines that the Blood angels won't be able to touch.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, also good:

Every unit you'd generally want to take from the Tau codex has a well engineered kit thats less than five years old. I think the vehicles are the only things left that leave us with frustrating mould lines.

Well, if you care a bit about melee and psychic phases, Eldar would do better.

Ignore what people say you can't do it. As long as you avoid spam, even some of the "broken" units can be played without causing you to lose friendships; a full squad of jetbikes with only a single scatter laser is much more tolerable than the infamous Scatbikes and a single wraithknight, while still an uphill battle, is a lot more managable than bringing 5 of them.

If you really want a challenge though, try running Eldar Aspect Warriors (just steer away from Warp Spiders). I just played with them over the weekend and they really harken back to when Eldar was "bring the right tools for the right job" type army.

The same could be said for the Tau, just avoid using vague rule interpretation to your advantage, the usual "no spamming" and you should be good. A good sport will always take the high road and let any ambiguous situation go to the opponent.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:


If you really want a challenge though, try running Eldar Aspect Warriors (just steer away from Warp Spiders). I just played with them over the weekend and they really harken back to when Eldar was "bring the right tools for the right job" type army.

I second this idea. I play Aspect Eldar and it's great. Although I do suggest you look at the terrain in your area before discounting Spiders. They get a lot less powerful without BLOS terrain as you go from ignoring most shooting to just blasts and templates if you're near the enemy.

I feel like Eldar have a much better chance of "playing down" than Tau do. Tau units need support and you can quickly start getting frustrated if they don't do well for you. Then you start looking at spamming Riptides.

Eldar have a much wider variety of play-styles and you will be less likely to wonder into "broken" territory since the "sub-par" Eldar units are actually good. there is nothing wrong with fielding the jetbikes, just don't go overboard with Scatter lasers. 2/1 ratio of Scatters to Shuricannons is actually not bad and gives a "have you cake and eat it too" feel without being OP.

For casual games, just avoid taking more that 2 of any one unit, don't take a LoW and you should do fine.

 Galef wrote:
I feel like Eldar have a much better chance of "playing down" than Tau do. Tau units need support and you can quickly start getting frustrated if they don't do well for you. Then you start looking at spamming Riptides.

Eldar have a much wider variety of play-styles and you will be less likely to wonder into "broken" territory since the "sub-par" Eldar units are actually good. there is nothing wrong with fielding the jetbikes, just don't go overboard with Scatter lasers. 2/1 ratio of Scatters to Shuricannons is actually not bad and gives a "have you cake and eat it too" feel without being OP.

For casual games, just avoid taking more that 2 of any one unit, don't take a LoW and you should do fine.

This. Tau, as OP as they are, really can fall apart with sub optimal lists. Eldar don't need to rely on markerlights or supporting fire to do okay, so they're much easier to run fun lists.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I think I could go either way to play reasonable games. If I went with Tau I'd be leaning towards Breachers in Devilfish, Steath Suits, a few Crisis Suits and some Kroot mainly.

I like both their fluff, so that's a toss-up, but Tau may be easier to paint and their start collecting box just has more models - though I could imagine multiples of the Eldar one might see more of those models used, given the farseer on jetbike can also be assembled as a warlock. Though maybe a warlock council on jetbikes might be a bit much out of the gate.

Still, all good stuff to chew on, so thanks for all the advice.

Eldar really aren't a broken codex, just a codex with three to four broken units that people spam.

Take away Scatbikes, Wraithguard's D weapons, the Wraith Knight and Warp Spider's flickerjump and the codex doesn't seem all that bad. My two eldar armies are Aspect Warrior based and Foot-Guardian based specifically because they're not overtly powerful, but not that much of a pushover either if used right.

Longstrider wrote:
Hey all. So I've been eyeballing getting back into 40k for a while, wither either the Eldar or Tau start collecting boxes. I'll mostly just be playing with a couple of friends - one has Blood Angels and the other has Space Marines. Given that none of us are into competitive gaming (but we're also not incompetent - I don't think anyone's going to take devastators with four different weapons, etc), we've been thinking of maybe just sticking to CAD, no LoW, nor formations, and fortifications only if pre-arranged.

Maybe I've just been reading The Internet too much, but it seems like without some kind of agreement of this sort (and assuming merely competent list building) that things can get very un-fun fast. I guess I'm just interested in successful steps anyone else has taken to produce a fun game for the occasional evening where nobody feels like they're screwed before deployment, especially between Eldar and Blood Angels. The Space Marines chap hasn't really bought stuff since 4th or 5th either, so it's not like he's packing grav or centurions either.

A Single CAD army is still the best way to play 40K. I am sure someone will tell me all the reasons why I'm wrong but hnstly, it's really a more fun way to play.. Just an opinion. The tournaments sometimes announce they are doing "Classic Hammer" events that get back to that. Those are fun.

You can make casual Eldar lists just fine.

Just don't spam Windriders with Scatter Lasers or Wraithknights with D-cannons, or Warp Spiders.

My friend has an eldar army I like to call "eldar lite". He doesn't use warpspiders, jetbikes, or a wraithknight. He still tends to table people with just wave serpents, dire avengers, shining spears, and war walkers. Hes probably the best player at the shop but it's hardly an optimized list but he still is able to compete with basically every army he faces. I play a guardian host gun line type eldar army a lot that also does well vs just about everything - footdar is actually very strong.

Tau on the other hand are an army of synergy - you ether have the synergy and dominate or you don't and you get smashed. Very hard to make a tau army that people wont squawk about.

Well, I wouldn't use both for casual gaming unless your opponents what will go after him.
Recently, I played my Necron decurion (5000 pts) against Tau and GK/Robots, both 2500 pts. It was a hard battle and everybody knew what was coming.

Tau are probably cheaper to get into.

Buy 3 Start collecting boxes (30 fw, 9 crisis suits, 3 ethereals, a riptide, commander, some kroot, 2 devilfish and maybe a sky ray or some broadsides and you can get going. Turn all your drones into market drones to run the drone net. you'd need 16, but then at least you don't have to buy path finders.

You won't have crazy cheese, you'll learn the army. and have the ability to mobile builds.

Naaris wrote:
Tau are probably cheaper to get into.

Buy 3 Start collecting boxes (30 fw, 9 crisis suits, 3 ethereals, a riptide, commander, some kroot, 2 devilfish and maybe a sky ray or some broadsides and you can get going. Turn all your drones into market drones to run the drone net. you'd need 16, but then at least you don't have to buy path finders.

Sorry, couldn't resist

Longstrider wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions so far. I think I could go either way to play reasonable games. If I went with Tau I'd be leaning towards Breachers in Devilfish, Steath Suits, a few Crisis Suits and some Kroot mainly.

I like both their fluff, so that's a toss-up, but Tau may be easier to paint and their start collecting box just has more models - though I could imagine multiples of the Eldar one might see more of those models used, given the farseer on jetbike can also be assembled as a warlock. Though maybe a warlock council on jetbikes might be a bit much out of the gate.

Still, all good stuff to chew on, so thanks for all the advice.

I play Tau as my fun army, and it is mostly Strikers, a mix of the Crisis, stealth and broadsides backed up by drones and a Railhead. You can't call it OP, but it is fun solid, and so far not been steamrolled by an opponent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Naaris wrote:
Tau are probably cheaper to get into.

Buy 3 Start collecting boxes (30 fw, 9 crisis suits, 3 ethereals, a riptide, commander, some kroot, 2 devilfish and maybe a sky ray or some broadsides and you can get going. Turn all your drones into market drones to run the drone net. you'd need 16, but then at least you don't have to buy path finders.

You won't have crazy cheese, you'll learn the army. and have the ability to mobile builds.

That list will lead to some nasty builds. A solid Dawnblade with marker drone net will be very accurate, you really just need the 2 starter sets and Hammerhead kit to start with a Dawnblade. That will be both fun and competitive with out being over powered.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Tau on the other hand are an army of synergy - you ether have the synergy and dominate or you don't and you get smashed. Very hard to make a tau army that people wont squawk about.

This. If I nuke your pathfinders and your broadsides, or if you have a riptide and I have a hard counter to it, you'll be fighting an uphill battle, . If you protect them well, use your units effectively, you'll have a pretty powerful list. Tau are kind of hard to judge how effective they'll be if you don't know what you're up against or how to use them well. They can pack a huge punch or fall apart like a wet paper bag.

Eldar are the more approachable army because they're a bit more well rounded. Not quite as easy to counter, but not quite as likely to get stomped, if you're running a "general" list. To repeat what everyone is saying, don't spam anything while still making an effective list will make for the best gaming experience.

Neither of these armies are OMFGWTFBBQ if you don't spam the big baddies, but don't purposely pick the worst units out of the codex (so you're not getting rolled over). Talk to your buddies about what you think you're going to get, but take their advice with a grain of salt as they might push you away from a balanced matchup (though I don't know what they're really like).