Mech Eldar 1850 list

[chicop76]

With my tau I played against a similar list and destroyed it. I lost no units and all he had left was 5 dire avengers, 3 firedragons, spirt seer, and 2 fire prisms.

Out of all he had I took the most damage from his spinner. I ignoredit on turn 1 and after that I made it my primary target. Once out the way I was able to resume the slaughter of the Eldar.

That being said the wave serpent is a pain to kill. It took all my anti tank to glance death 2 a turn. Grant it 1 strength 10 railgun, 3 rail guns, 6 strength 7 ap 2 shoots, 12 strength 7 shots, 30 sniper rifles, 2 fusion guns, and 6 seeker missles is a lot of anti tank to be shrugging off. I only got one pen in the whole game and that was due to him using his serpent sheild to fire.

What I think cost him the game was I ignore cover saves and he doesn't. I admit gtg ground a lot. Helps to have a warlord trait to fire at bs after going to ground once a turn. Also thanks to marker lights I didn't suffer too much by going to ground. Although 2 of my pathfinder teams spent the game going to ground a lot.

If I was vehicle heavy I think the serpent spam would had done better. Since I only run two vehicles and have two riptides and 3 broadsides I noticed the army had a hard time dealing with the Tau. It didn't help when the first vehicle I glanced death was the fire dragons.

Th dire avengers wasn't hard to kill at all, and the fire dragons once in triple fire range was easily dealt with as well.

I wil say the spinner was annoying since it could possibly snipe out my ethereal and commander, got to love succesful look out sir's.

However let's say 2-3 spinners could had possibly sniped out my ethereal or commander.

Thinking back I would had ignored the spinners until I took ou the firedragon mobiliy. interesting enough I didn't even bother firing at his fire prisoms at all. +3 gtg cover saves all game long, go area terrain. I did had other units that either had $ cover save thanks to my riptides. I would say my worst save was my +5 invulnerable on my riptides, or +5 on my tanks.

I think more ap 2 would had helped, and the ability to negate cover or fire barrage. I learned to put my ethereal into cover in the future, although he made out all right.

The serpents are durable, but they have no real ap, which means you can save against them.

I'm not a fan of the Sun Knight, but I would had issues if I had to go against it. I would had to have to decide to kill the knight which I can easily do, or kill the fire dragon serpents. I probably still would target out the fire dragons, due to possible instant death and ease of killing my tides.

I just think more durable units would help. 5 avengers die rather easily.

[chicop76]

Also note your list is better rounded than what I faced, however a weakness in your list that he didn't have is you have one unit out of a serpent. I had 30 fire warriors with trigger fingers since turn 1 they couldn't shoot at much. Unless I wreak a serpent they had nothing to shoot at. The spiders are an easier target to shoot at over the serpents.

However I can't say much, because where I play we use a lot of terrain. That being said with their movement and run shoot it may be hard to kill them. In the game I was in if they was to engage they would had died, unless they was able to enter combat, unless it was against the sides or riptides.

[DrLove42]

With my tau I played against a similar list and destroyed it. I lost no units and all he had left was 5 dire avengers, 3 firedragons, spirt seer, and 2 fire prisms.

Out of all he had I took the most damage from his spinner. I ignoredit on turn 1 and after that I made it my primary target. Once out the way I was able to resume the slaughter of the Eldar.

That being said the wave serpent is a pain to kill. It took all my anti tank to glance death 2 a turn. Grant it 1 strength 10 railgun, 3 rail guns, 6 strength 7 ap 2 shoots, 12 strength 7 shots, 30 sniper rifles, 2 fusion guns, and 6 seeker missles is a lot of anti tank to be shrugging off. I only got one pen in the whole game and that was due to him using his serpent sheild to fire.

What I think cost him the game was I ignore cover saves and he doesn't. I admit gtg ground a lot. Helps to have a warlord trait to fire at bs after going to ground once a turn. Also thanks to marker lights I didn't suffer too much by going to ground. Although 2 of my pathfinder teams spent the game going to ground a lot.

If I was vehicle heavy I think the serpent spam would had done better. Since I only run two vehicles and have two riptides and 3 broadsides I noticed the army had a hard time dealing with the Tau. It didn't help when the first vehicle I glanced death was the fire dragons.

Th dire avengers wasn't hard to kill at all, and the fire dragons once in triple fire range was easily dealt with as well.

I wil say the spinner was annoying since it could possibly snipe out my ethereal and commander, got to love succesful look out sir's.

However let's say 2-3 spinners could had possibly sniped out my ethereal or commander.

Thinking back I would had ignored the spinners until I took ou the firedragon mobiliy. interesting enough I didn't even bother firing at his fire prisoms at all. +3 gtg cover saves all game long, go area terrain. I did had other units that either had $ cover save thanks to my riptides. I would say my worst save was my +5 invulnerable on my riptides, or +5 on my tanks.

I think more ap 2 would had helped, and the ability to negate cover or fire barrage. I learned to put my ethereal into cover in the future, although he made out all right.

The serpents are durable, but they have no real ap, which means you can save against them.

I'm not a fan of the Sun Knight, but I would had issues if I had to go against it. I would had to have to decide to kill the knight which I can easily do, or kill the fire dragon serpents. I probably still would target out the fire dragons, due to possible instant death and ease of killing my tides.

I just think more durable units would help. 5 avengers die rather easily.

Eldar will always suffer against Tau. We rely on cover saves and Tau just strip tjem far too easily.

Also the warlord table is get up from going to ground once per game not turn. If you were using it every turn its no suprise he hammered

[chicop76]

Eldar will always suffer against Tau. We rely on cover saves and Tau just strip tjem far too easily.

Also the warlord table is get up from going to ground once per game not turn. If you were using it every turn its no suprise he hammered

I said I used the warlord trait once, but continued to gtg all game long. The warlord trait helped in turn one which I took little loss and was able to fire at near full power on turn 2. The other turns I was gtg, which you can still fire snap shots. I was shooting marker lights to allow my bs1 units to fire at bs 3 via snap shots. It reduced my cover denial, but not much since seekers deny cover, smart missiles, and my broadsides due to my commander upgrades, oh and the barrage shooting from my riptides.

It's not just Tau. I can see th same problem with space wolves and grey knights. Also necrons with wwbb and + 3 or 4 saves is a problem as well. For example how are you able to really deal with wraiths. If you pop out your vehicles you may lose your squads due to return fire power.

I would say Dark Angels, but they really don't dish out a lot of anti-tank fire power. Nids and Daemons I can see being interesting match ups.

Ground guard can be rough.

Other than the ones mentiones I don't see eldar having problems with too many armies. Dark Eldar maybe, due to a heavy amount of anti vehicle, but which vehicles would be wiped out rather easily.

[rle68]

Eldar will always suffer against Tau. We rely on cover saves and Tau just strip tjem far too easily.

Also the warlord table is get up from going to ground once per game not turn. If you were using it every turn its no suprise he hammered

if your relying on cover saves vs tau your doing something wrong... kill of the marker lights off and then run his butt off the table

[chicop76]

if your relying on cover saves vs tau your doing something wrong... kill of the marker lights off and then run his butt off the table

Good luck with doing that. If you are focusing on 4-5 squads that gives out marker lights. Than it's an easier win for the Tau. Also marker light is not the only thing Tau has to deny cover. Barrage from riptides and commander that can take ignore cover. That means 7-8 units you have to kill off that can deny cover.

Not to mention if you put marker lights in every squad than what. The riptides and the hammer head is the only models in my army that can't take marker lights, oh and kroot too. Marker Drones and drone controller is a great upgrade.

It's best to kill the units killing you, than killing the support units which can't really do anything , but support. Personally that's how the eldar player lost big time, due to shooting my gtg pathfinders, broadsides since they was majorly denying cover. The problem is unless you can deny cover yourself it's easier said than done. Also killing all the support models still leave the models that can put hurt on you.

However I played Tau since 3rd. The only thing that has ever done well against Tau has been stupid tank shock, and units that can live long enough to assault Tau, or an army that can outshoot Tau. Eldar can't really out shoot Tau, and durabilty without no FNP is a liability.

However Eldar vehicles is hard for Tau to destroy, well wave serpents are. Also Eldar have a melee advatantage over Tau. I personally think trying to outshoot Tau is a rather bad ideal. Especially some builds I seen with 3 riptides and 9 broadsides.

it's funny that when I was making my Tau list I added a lot of stealth suits in it. Than I tought about what if I faced Tau and quickly took out my stealth suits realizing that cover denial will see them easily killed.

Building an all comers list. You hav e to consider cover denial units. Daemons with vector strikes and skullcannons is an example and CSM doing the same thing, but adding in helldrakes.

Eldar only cover denial units are D-sythe Wraithguard and deathspinners, which I will kill or get rid of mobility with a vengence. Out of a serpent I am not too worried about wraithguard as Tau. An army of wraithguard is another matter though. However taking wraithguard will force my anti tank to choose between serpents or wraithguard.

Honestly I felt Eldar would do well against Tau until I played a good Eldar player. I seriously over estimated the serpents. Even with +4 cover saves. I was able to still down 2 serpents a turn. If I didn't go to ground with half my army, and if I had los and range to his army all game long. I could had possibly down 4-5 serpents in a turn. Due to terrain, me deploying first, and half my army out of range, plus constanly gtg. I was only able to average 2 a turn.

As an after thought I think letting him go first would had been much better. That way I could had deployed off his deployment and would had done more damage turn one.

[rle68]

facing tau and seeing path finders with marker lights....

for all that on turn one all wave serpents/ war walkers unleash and you have 0 pathfinders left in a perfect world ..

the wave serpents arent going to let you go to ground if they fire the shields..and of course youd have other things with marker lights but no where near the numbers you did.. and with 60" range and 4 serpents or in my case 3 thats alot of dead pathfinders..

reducing marker lights negates an advantage and there goes some if not all your no more cover save shooting

then its a gun fight and eldar bs is better overall

[chicop76]

facing tau and seeing path finders with marker lights....

for all that on turn one all wave serpents/ war walkers unleash and you have 0 pathfinders left in a perfect world ..

the wave serpents arent going to let you go to ground if they fire the shields..and of course youd have other things with marker lights but no where near the numbers you did.. and with 60" range and 4 serpents or in my case 3 thats alot of dead pathfinders..

reducing marker lights negates an advantage and there goes some if not all your no more cover save shooting

then its a gun fight and eldar bs is better overall

I don't see it being that simple. I was waiting for the ignore save barrage which he did on turn 2 and wasn't impressed by it at all. That allowed me to cement my victory since his shielding was down. I still was rolling bad, had to get through cover saves, and still was glancing, except for on serpent I melted in the face.

The game I played it would had been really dumb to do that. I had 10 weapons that had the same range or even greater range than your shielding. 6 was strength 7 ap 2, 3 was strength 8 ap 1 with tank hunter, and a strength 10 rail gun. Even with out the Pathfiners my three strength 8 ap 1 shoots with target locks can still ignore cover, did I mention the was also twin linked.

Yes the shielding ignore cover with no ap. I have to admit I was rolling really good on saves. For example my riptide passed his regular leadership test on psychic shreik, saved against 3 wounds which 2 was from the fire dragons and one from a fireprism. However I failed every roll to boost my riptides. One Riptide had 3 self inflicted wounds on it and he failed to wound the Ritide himeself. The other one had only two wounds which was also self inflicted. Also I was rolling below average for shooting. At turn 3 when he quit he was only able to kill a side, 3 missile drones, 2 wounds on my commander, 6 pathfinders, and one hull point on my hammerhead. He in the end was trying to kill my sides due to all the crap they can do.

However let's look at one wave serpent. That's 7 twin linked strength 6 shots and 1+d6 strength 7 shots.
On average that's about 5 strength 6 hits and about 4 srength 7. If I went to ground on a 3+ that's roughly 3_4 pathfinders dead which would require you to fire 2 wave serpents to kill a squad of pathfinders. That will take 6 waveserpents to kill my patfinders completly and maybe both prisms to kill my skyray. At that point my army is basically untouched and I can return fire probably downing 3-4 serpents quite easily thanks to no shielding.

The problem in that game was I went first. I could had down 2 serpents at game start, but decided to split fire at 4 targets with my broadsides. If it wasn't for the serpent shielding I could had possibly had wiped out all his serpents in turn one.

Another note was besides my broadsides, and seeker missiles, I wasn't bothering with denying cover. I was more focused on raising bs due to gtg. Even still my tides and sniper kroot alone was doing well enough to glance death his vehicles by turn 3. Turn 4 would had easly been an annilation since I downed all his serpents in turn 3.

Again I doubt that was even a viable tactic, because he was killing my pathfinders. Also it's save to say Kroot returning fire on dire avengers with triple tap tanks to an Ethereal is rather nasty. Would had been nice to get the extra bs bonus though.

I really don't see how Eldar can really out shoot Tau. I can see Eldar outranging Tau. Hince why I take rail guns over high yield missiles.

The funny thing about the eldar player was he actaully was gonna do what you said until he noticed 10 shots that can still touch him, the kroot could too, but they can only glance any way.

If anything I might add krootox to my kroot which would had been helpful in this game.

The unit that was really doing anything was the deathspinner. I underestimated that unit. A 48" range large blast barrage weapon is rather good, than it can turn into a turrent weapon that's a flammer. I had a hard time getting to it due to it being behind his fire prism and behind his serpents.

Also what helped he tried to hit my right flank hard, and by turn 3 I was able to pull my left flank around to come help the right. Also the right retreated back to the center. Looking at my deployment and terrain he was rather had to deploy like that. He couldn't spread out like talking about it.

I think I will look and see if I need los to fire a seeker. I have to remember it has like a 90 inch range and I just need one marker to use it.

[bluepowerade]

No doubt Tau would be the most challenging of opponents. All those points invested into Holofields are for naught when facing them. I struggle against Tau because it is the situation your opponent faced, shoot the markerlights or the units that actually damage? Personally I would try to skirt outside of LOS or range of the marker lights, as they can't touch the entire board.

Warp spiders are fantastic Riptide killers, as their weapons are assault 2 str 7 and on a roll of 6 to wound are ap 1. They are amazingly fast and can stay behind terrain very well and try to avoid a majority of return fire by being out of line of sight.

I think with a WK I add a very threatening units (especially to your Broadsides) that can absorb a pretty significant amount of firepower before going down. That turn of focused fire allows the rest of my army to perform its duties with much less fear.

However, your list is one that I would really struggle with. I have considered adding some swooping hawks, as they are surprisingly effective against non-MEQ units, especially since they can blind tau pretty easily.

I think the Nightspinner would be neat, but I'm not sure about it yet. It is a unit I have been wanting to test out. Being able to fire barrages at long range would be pretty neat.

As for my one foot slogging units, they will sit as far back out of LOS as possible. They will pop out with the heavy weapon, shoot, then run back and stay on their objective as best as possible.

I think the only way to fight Tau with guns is in a skirmisher fashion. Get up in their grill and take advantage of move shoot run and try to stay hidden as much as possible.

[bluepowerade]

After playing a game, I modified my list some:

HQ - Spiritseer - 70 pts

Troop - 10 x Dire avengers - 265 pts
Wave Serpent
holofields, TL scatter laser

Troop - 10 x Dire avengers - 265 pts
Wave Serpent
holofields, TL scatter laser

Troop - 12 x Guardians - 128 pts
brightlance

troop - 5 x wraithguard - 295 pts
wave serpent
holofields

fast attack - 8 x swooping hawks - 153 pts
exarch, sunrifle

fast attack - warp spiders - 152 pts

heavy support - fire prism - 140 pts
holofields

heavy support - 2 x war walkers - 140 pts
2 x 2 x scatter laser

heavy support - wraithknight - 240 pts

I swapped the fire dragons for some scoring wraithguard, which I thought couldn't hurt as I was limited on my scoring options. I swapped out the crimson hunter for some hawks, as they are fantastic anti infantry, and it was an area I was lacking in. The wraithknight was adjusted to save a huge amount of points, and add some very nice str 10 goodness. I also threw in some war walkers with my spare points as I have heard great things about them.