Helping a friend with a tournament warm up. Tau Vs Eldar

[Bob821]

Next weekend I'm helping a friend of mine play test is Tau list in preparation for an upcoming tournament. Now being a Blood Angel player with the occasional smattering of IG (do not have the new Codex yet) I find myself somewhat lacking when it comes to running against his Tournament lists. That’s not to say I can’t sneak a victory but it’s very hard work and not a typical battle or opponent he’d expect to meet at a tournament. As such another friend of mine is lending me his Eldar Army in order to really test this Tau list.

Now the problem is that I know what works against marines using Eldar. I am beaten to a bloody pulp by them at least once a month! But I have no experience playing them against any one let alone Tau.

So if anyone can offer any brilliant advice on lists or tactics for playing Eldar against Tau that would be very warmly received. I under stand there is some shenagins you can do with Dark Eldar allies and a seer council on jetbikes but I’m not sure how it works…

I was thinking of a 2 Farseers, 2 Wraith knights with those big scary guns and the rest of the points on Dire Avengers and serpents. Maybe some wraith guard in one of the transports with those high power low range guns they have.

I know what list he is taking…. Which I understand sounds a bit like cheating but he has specifically asked for me to make it as difficult as possible for him and to help provided me with his list.


HQ

Cadre Fire Blade,
Cadre Fire Blade,

Elites

XV104 Riptide with all the toys! Ion accelerator, Early warning over ride, twin linked fusion blasters etc etc. X 3

Troops

Fire warrior team. 6X fire warriors with photon grenades in Devilfish transports with smart missile systems. X 3

Heavy Support

XV88 Broadsides with twin linked rail rifles, twin linked smart missile system X2

Fortifications

Fortress of Redemption. Frag and Kruk storm missiles and twin linked Icarus Lascannon.


The weakness that jumps out at me is he has fallen in to the trap of too many toys and not enough boys! Kill those troops and he’s struggling!

Many thanks in advance… and oh I forgot to mention it’s 1500pts.

[jd2x.pacman]

War Walkers with dual bright lances each- 1 squad of 3 is 210 points. s8 shots at ap2 will slaughter the suits since they are all t4. They are pretty weak but keep them out of LOS with shooting and running. Another option is a squad of d-scythe wraithguard in a stock wave serpent. These guys will murder anything. Get the serpent as deep into enemy lines as possible- it will die on your opponents turn but shouildnt take pens because of the shield. Next turn light up anything you want- s4 AP2 templates (ignoring cover) auto wounding and instant death on 6's makes riptides die like chumps. Well, anything actually.

[TauBoss]

POSTED IN DAKKA DAKKA might help

Re: 1500 Eldar - competitive

by*Kaughnor*» Fri Jun 07, 2013 2:49 pm

If it helps this is my 1500 point list that I've had very good results with.

HQ:
Farseer - spear

Troops:
3x10 avengers - ws, holo, laser
5 avengers

Heavy:
wraith knight
fire prism - holo
falcon - star cannon, holo, spirit stone

I've tabled 2 opponents with it so far but I've also only played 2 games with the new codex. Also in the two games all I ever lost was one fire prism. Puts out a ton of fire power at range that is mostly twin linked. Puts out even more fire power when the opponent gets closer with the 70 bladestorm shots. Very flexible/mobile as well. I've tweeked it a bit: replaced 5 avengers with rangers, added spirit stone on farseer and upgradded starcannon on falcon to a scatter laser.

I've not tried the new version yet but now every long range shot is twin linked if my farseer starts outside the falcon on turn one. The rangers give him up to a 2+ cover save if going to ground in ruins so I can use the stone to drop the warp charge cost of more expensive spells. Have not tried this new version out yet but the original is solid at any rate.

[Gleipnir]

Eldar actually fare very well against Tau for a few reasons, one they redeploy with ease, they have effective ability to ignore cover themselves, and access to divination psykers, combined with standard shooting attacks that do rather well against 2+ and 3+ armor suits if necessary. Wave Serpents don't have a lot to fear from most Tau weapons, so moving from a position out of LoS from the Broadsides and Fortress of Redpention is not terribly hard, being exposed to a SMS or Burst Canon that can't penetrate your armor, is not that big a deal as the mobile portion of his force is his riptide and his Devilfish. Add a Wraithknight for some fast hard to kill in your face killing power, resist the temptation to throw the Wraithknight at the Riptide or Broadsides instead focusing his troops and Devilfish, and allowing your Dire Avenger troops deployed out of Wave Serpents to take down his riptide and broadsides.

Toss in a few jet bike troops to move forward late in the game and snag objectives, and its easy enough to use remainder of your force to eliminate his fortification and any units hiding within in it via assault.

Make sure you place some Line of Sight blocking terrain for you to deploy from to negate any use of his interceptor weapons, should be easy enough to do as you know his deployment area and placement of his fortification prior to other terrain placement.

Wave serpents should eliminate any Fire Warriors that are silly enough to hop out of their transports in Line of Sight, like you said he lacks troops.