Topic: I need insight

[fire fish]

     I am new to tau I have played to games one against eldar and marines and the other  against marines, won both but they were small games aprox..500pts .
 I have Battle force.

How do you kill marines and eldar ...http://URL                   wow

[taphos]

Railgun (and Ordinance Blast)
Ion Cannon
Pulse Rifles Aint Too Shabby
EMP grenades On The Eldars Skimmers
It wall depends on what chapters/craftworlds

[Poe, the Sociopath]

hey welcome to EO!

i would recomend either HH with ion cannons or just plain o' massed fire warriors to kill overall! (don't to bring a handy dandy Broadside)

[fire fish]

bel' tan And black templars and thanks

[taphos]

Biel-Tan is easy, they reilly heavily on aspect warriors, and have few heavy support choices, so just siege him.

[fire fish]

          ?seige?

[Poe, the Sociopath]

broadsides

[fire fish]

                  ah

[Siege_TF]

You rang?

For a small game go for FCWs, a full HQ and a tank.

[fire fish]

             thx

[Aerundel]

Why would you use EMPs on Eldar Skimmers? If he lets you catch his 24" moving skimmer, he deserves to be destroyed, but I doubt it's worth the extra 30% cost per model. Use at least missile pods, if not railguns. The pods will blow threw most Eldar armor and crack the vehicles good. And if you go first, that's a lot of walking they'll have to do  

[DeadSeraphim]

Ok, first of all, Railguns aren't always worthy against all Eldar vehicles.  Ion Cannons and Missile Pods are just as good against them.

Here's a quick summary of common Eldar vehicles:

Wave Serpent - AV 12, Energy Field.
Falcon/Fire Prism - AV 12, can take Holofields/Spirit Stones
Vyper - AV 10, Open-Topped, can take Holofields/Spirit Stones
Warwalkers - AV 10, Open-Topped, Energy Field, Walker

AV listed is for front armor only.

First of all, except for War Walkers, expect Glancing as the best result you can get (fast skimmers).

Against Energy Fields, weapons strengths greater than 8 are reduced to an 8.  That means the Ion Gun's three shots at strength 7 may be a better call for you than the single strength 8 shot from the Railgun.  Missile Pods and Fusion Guns on relevant Crisis Suits work well, also.  Note that in a Swordwind army as you said you'll be facing, the Waveserpent is the most common vehicle as it's the basic transport (and if your opponent isn't using Waveserpents, you've pretty much got an auto-win anyway).

Holofields force you to roll two dice on the result table and take the lowest.  That means it's very hard to get the 4 or the 6 you'll need to kill one.  This is usually backed up by Spirit Stones, which allow the ignoring (or downgrading) of shaken/stunned results on a certain die roll.  Again, the more shots you pump in to them, the better off you are.

Note that some vehicles may be seen with a thing called a Crystal Targeting Matrix (CTM).  This lets the vehicle move, shoot, then move again in a similar way to Drones, Crisis, and Stealth Suits.  Usually these are seen on the Fire Prism, Falcon and Vypers.  SMS works well against the vypers, as they have paper-thin armor, and you'll usually not have LOS.  Killing a Falcon or Fire Prism so armed will be a bit tougher.  Note the Falcon can also transport troops.

Also, some vehicles may be seen with an upgrade called Star Engines.  These give an extra burst of speed (like the eldar Fleet of Foot rule), so movement is not always limited to a mere 24".  Factor that in, especially for Waveserpents and Falcons (the transports).

[DeadSeraphim]

I was just thinking about this a little more, and if *I* were taking my Eldar army up against Tau (and I was using the Swordwind list), you could expect a hoarde of Waveserpents with Spirit Stones and Star Engines.

That way, they can sometimes ignore or reduce certain damage results, plus get a really nice speed boost of 2d6" over and above their 24" move.  Who really cares if you shoot them down when they're already well within your deployment zone?  As long as you can't get within 2" of the access point, it's all good.

Fill them with Scorpions and Banshees.  Banshees will negate your armor saves and automatically go first in CC.  These gals target any Broadsides first, and other battlesuits second.

Scorpions get a LOT of attacks, while having decent armor themselves.  Scorpions would get a Farseer with them, giving them a re-roll on those armor saves (making them over all very hard to kill off by shooting on a sweeping advance).  They can also kill vehicles.  Thinking of them as Eldar Terminators isn't too horribly off.  They'd target Pathfinders and FCW (and Devilifh if they're in them) first.

You may see a couple of units of Dark Reapers in the rear.  They're like heavy weapon squads...  Everybody gets Reaper Missile Launchers.  These guys would specifically tank-hunt any vehicles you had, with the addd softening of units when you're out or have none.  Start with any Hammerheads and work down from there.

Also, there's the ever-popular Jetbike Farseer with as many Warlocks as I can cram in there, each with Destructor (and one with Enhance maybe).  But that unit has been covered in another thread already.

Over all, it could be a good fight.  I'd have to argue that Bel-Tain Swordwind is NOT the best Eldar army to take against Tau, however.  I'd personally rather take an Iyanden Ghost army, or Altioc Pathfinders.

[distubed666]

i say use cyclic ion blaster for space marines it rips throught they armour also use all powerful plasma guns like plasma rifle but most of all eldar are fast so you need lots of troops to storm them.

[The GrimSqueaker]

February 2003?




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