1850 Tau vs 1850 Eldar 1st encounter.

[chicop76]

I wanted to try out my updated list and my friend used his Eldar list which won him 2nd last tournament. We decide Vps and standard long deployment.

1850 Tau

-HQ-

130 Commander:
S Systems: Sig Systems: Puretide Engram Neurochip, Command and Control Node, Multi-spectrum Sensor Suite

50 Ethereal:

- Troops -

90 10 x firewarriors

90 10 x firewarriors

90 10 x firewarriors

98 14 x kroot: sniper

105 15 x kroot: sniper

- Elites -

190 Riptide:
RW: Twin- Linked Fusion, Ion Accelerator
SS: Early Warning Override

190 Riptide:
RW: Twin- Linked Fusion, Ion Accelerator
SS: Early Warning Override

-Fast Attack -

100 5 x Pathfinders: 3 x railgun

100 5 x Pathfinders: 3 x railgun

88 8 x Pathfinders

- Heavy Support-

115 skyray:
RW: Smart Missile System

131 Hammer Head:
RW: Railgun w/ submunition, Smartmissile system
VBS: Blacksun Filter

282 3 x Broadsides: 3x target
6 x Missile Drones

Total: 1849

Vs

Spiritseer:
Psychice Shriek and Conceal

10 Firedragons
Waveserpent: Scatterlaser, S cannon

5 Dire Avengers
Waveserpent: Scatterlaser, S cannon

5 Dire Avengers
Waveserpent: Scatterlaser, S cannon

5 Dire Avengers
Waveserpent: Scatterlaser, S cannon

5 Dire Avengers
Waveserpent: Scatterlaser, S cannon

5 Dire Avengers
Waveserpent: Scatterlaser, S cannon

Fireprism

Fireprism

Deathspinner

When I saw him pull out 9 vehicles I went really. I was hoping for a wraithknight, but no luck there. When he saw my list he said that's why I don't run a knight is due to list like that.

The game was rather short and lasted 3 turns.

My look at the Eldar it was a pain in the butt to down his vehicles. What made everything dandy was all his vehicles had a +1 cover save which meant +4 cover saves all day. I went first, but due to deployment I really didn't have any clean shots. Of course I down the Fire Dragon Serpent first.

Turn two I was able to down two serpents.

Turn 3 I destroyed the bulk of his army thanks to triple rapid fire and killing everything, but his Fire Prisms

I realy didn't take too many loses, but lost have my side squad and had two wounds on my comander, got to love look out sir and +3 gtg cover saves, and a warlord trait to ignore gtg.

Overall the battle seemed very onesided. I did far better the expected. On average I was glance deathing 2.5 vehicles a turn. I think I only got one pen hit through. Even with the serpents dishing out a ton of fire power plus in turn 3 he even used his shields it didn't or wasn't enough to take out my side unit.

What was doing any real damage to my army was the death spinner which I realized I should had taken it out a lot sooner.

The spinner was actually a threat, while everything else didn't really do much.

I will say 12 missile shots, and 3 rail shoots shooting at 4 differant targets worked out really well. The cover denial, and tank hunter really paid off. If it wasn't for the glancing hit downgrades I probably would had tabled him in turn two. The game could had lasted to turn 4, but he only had 2 prisms, 5 dire avengers, 3 fire dragons, and a spiritseer with most my army intact. I would had wiped him in turn 4 with all the sepeents out of the way.

I think the rail rifles didn't help m out at all, more marker lights would had helped. Dropping the rifles will give me 90 points to spare. I think more anti tank would had been nice.

After fighting Eldar I would say I overestimated the serpents firepower. If I ran a lot of vehicles I would had felt it. The problem he had was trying to focus his entire army into my broadsides. +2 or +3 saves was just too good. If he ran more death spinners it would had made a differance. The prisms really didn't do anything since they was also shooting at my broadsides. Got to love gtg and using marker lights and my warlord trait to still shoot like nothing happened.

Interesting enough if I let him go first I think I would had done a ton better. Half my army couldn't shoot him in turn one, and in turn 2 a quarter of my army still couldn't shoot at him. Turn 3 was rough since majority of my army was able to do something.

I think the problem he had he couldn't get close which is why he lost soo much in turn 3. Also he couldn't play the range game, due to 4 railguns, 2 ion rifles hitting him at long range outside of 36".

[Aspire to Glory]

Doesn't even sound fun to play against. Ah well. That's competitive play for you.

Congrats on the win.

[DarkLink]

That's Tau for you. Also, people need to get over MSU Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents. Wave Serpents are really, really good, but that's an extremely one dimensional army.

[Dave Mcturk]

dire unavengers... now a very blunt knife...
not convinced by new mechdar either...
vehicles are much more effective... but cost more than before...
loving the new dex... but got to think outside the boxes !

[chicop76]

Not saying Eldar sucks. He would had done a lot better if he didn't have avenger/ serpent spam. His death spinner was annoying. I didn't realize it had a large pie plate. He was trying to barrage kill my Ethereal and Commander. Sadly I think the spinner did more damage to my unit than his entire army. I might now take iriduim armour since instant death close calls was possible. Got to love look out sir and +3 cover saves.

It was annoying to play against. It took my broadside unit all it's fire power to down one serpent at a time. The +2 down grades was rather annoying.

I do have to say I feel rather confident you can serpent rush quite easily. It took my entire army to ground one serpent and I went first. Lots of terrain made a differance as well.

I am pretty confident serpent spam is not the way to go. You need units that can deal with terminator type units that can dish out a ton of fire power like oblits for example. His fire prisms could had killed my hammer head, but we ignored each other heavy slots. The prisms couldn't kill my riptide or my broadsides.

I think that's why he lost was he couldn't handle the sides or the riptides. If he couldn't handle that he would had the same problem against grey knight paladin spam.

Another problem I saw is he had a lot of shooting, but it was situational. If he droped his shields and shot his serpents became easy to kill. If he unloaded his dire avengers they met with triple rapid fire.

Also the armies in ability to deny cover was a big one. I went to ground with every unit. Either I had +3 cover saves or + 4 cover saves. My entire army was hiding behind my two riptides, so the +5 invulnerable saving riptides was the only models I had that was not getting cover saves.

I would say 10 firedragons in one transport isn't a great ideal. It was the first tranport I took out and I killed them at my leisure. They did nothing, but got shot up. Fire Warriors wounding them on 2s really hurted them.

I think wraithguard may had made a differance. I don't think 135 points worth of upgrades to give your tank +1 cover saves was worth it. Grant it half my army was denying cover saves, my other half was stil getting through puttin glancing hits on the vehicles.

I will say heavy serpents is not a bad ideal. However you need some strong units in the serpents, and units that can deal with oblits, sides, riptides, paladins, dreadknights, etc. Sadly to say a sunknight would had made a differance, or 2. The knight would had died, but his tranports probably would had stayed in tact.

I also want to point out 6th edition rule set really help with this battle. If this was 5th edition he would had done better. I had to move my left flank to my right side of my army. By turn 2-3 my entire army was able to redeploy and deal with the threat. I have to give kudos to my kroot which provided me line breaker. Got to love +2 cover saves in woods that's are terrain.

[karandras]

Congrats on the win. Your list was pretty solid. What is obvious to me, is that your opponent likely is either A) not an experienced Eldar player or B) has not adapted his 4th/5th edition "MechDar" tactics to 6th edition and the current codex.

On its face in a KP game contracting these two lists, there is absolutely no reason for you to have crushed him so badly (unless you omitted that you seized the initiative), other than his own poor deployment and/or tactics (or perhaps terrain placement). I know it's easy to armchair general and that is not my intent. That being said, your army yields 9 very squishy KPs whereas his offers none. His list was not balanced and balance is key for Eldar. I wouldn't use this game to jump to any conclusions on the Eldar codex. That of course is part of what makes the hobby so great though... every game is different!

[chicop76]

Congrats on the win. Your list was pretty solid. What is obvious to me, is that your opponent likely is either A) not an experienced Eldar player or B) has not adapted his 4th/5th edition "MechDar" tactics to 6th edition and the current codex.

On its face in a KP game contracting these two lists, there is absolutely no reason for you to have crushed him so badly (unless you omitted that you seized the initiative), other than his own poor deployment and/or tactics (or perhaps terrain placement). I know it's easy to armchair general and that is not my intent. That being said, your army yields 9 very squishy KPs whereas his offers none. His list was not balanced and balance is key for Eldar. I wouldn't use this game to jump to any conclusions on the Eldar codex. That of course is part of what makes the hobby so great though... every game is different!

I played him several times. He's been playing as far back as 2nd and longer than I have been playing. Typically our games are usally much closer than this one. I blew him out of the water in this game which took me from surprise.

That being said he did said this is basically his 4th edition list with a spinner added to it. He also plays dark eldar and daemons.

He said he stopped playing regular Eldar in 5th and has picked it back up in 6th. He has faced necrons and greyknights with it and has done well placing 2nd in last tournament. However out of the many greyknight players I know none ran the paladin spam. The necron list are all unique from flyer spam, barge spam, wraith spam. It's like each Necron player picked a differant spam and went with it. I seen on with a balanced list without wraiths. Also the Greyknight list are all differant as well. Knowing that from the tournament before that one it's hard to know what he really fought against. I can garentee with soo many greyknight and necron players in the local tournament he probably fought both armies.

Terrain helped him as much as it helped me. We had like a 24" x 24" huge piece of terrain in the middle with one facing blocking los 4 stories tall while 2 facings was 3 stories tall with a few window here and there with one facing without a wall on top of a square area terrain piece.

Turn one due to terrain I couldn't shoot with these units:
8 pathfinders
5 pathfinders with rail
Riptide
Skyray
10 fire warriors
My missile drones due to range

What shot first turn
29 kroot snipers due to infiltrate
3 rail guns from broadsides
2 marker lights
Hammerhead
And my other riptide

I had to move and run half my army on the other side of the building to deal with him settting up his entire army on the far right flank. It took me turn 3 to get my entire army to actually participate. Turn 2 I was able to include my 8 pathfinders, skyray, and riptide.

I had people on the sidelines comment why I was shooting with my sniper kroot and I said they can glance the serpents so why not. I needed every glance that I can get.

His goal was to take out my sides and deal with everything else later. Turn 1 he only fired his spinner into them and shot everything else. The following turns he focused into the sides. The ability to fire at 4 targets with ignore cover, twin linked, and tank hunter with an ethereal attached made them into a juicy target.

Honestly looking back he didn't have much to target besides the sides, kroot, 1 squad of fire warriors, and 1 squad of pathfinders and a riptide. The fire warriors can't hurt the transports. I was surprised he really didn't focus on the kroot. The kroot in his deployment zone I was sure he would send a portion of his army to deal with them. Honestly it was a trap since I had a good amount of fire power covering them, and +2 cover saves is very helpful, go trees and area terrain.

His best bet was to try to take me mid range. He realized that wasn't working and went for close range which was a deadly mistake due to fusion Smash with my riptides, although I never got the chace to smash.

Also he was getting cover saves due to the fact I focused on the fire dragon serpent in the back. I could had taken out another serpent, but my sides at first was shooting at 4 different targets. Later on I started to focus fire instaed of split firing.
Especially when I had 3 drones and two sides left.

I honestlt rather play objectives which would had favored him a bit more, even though I have two squads that can sit on objectives. However even with objectives I can force people to come to me anyway or have that on objective we have to fight for.

Even if he took out my broadsides I still doubt he would had done well. His fire dragons was the only thing he really had to deal with my tides. The second he got out of his transports my 5 troop squads would had or did blasted his guys to death. The only squad I wasn't reallly shooting at was the fire dragons since they had to run all the way from the other table edge, go rear door opening and no side doors. When they got close I pre measured a lot to make sure I killed enough to keep them from using their meltas. I also premeasured the fire dragons a lot to make sure my tides was at least always 18" away from them. If he had an exarch I would had only worried about 1 melta shot. The premeasuring helped keep the fire dragons out of the game without focusing too much fire power at them.