1500 'Nids against Tau/Eldar help

[riverzora]

So I have a 1500pt game tomorrow just arranged, 1500pts. He'll be playing Tau with Eldar Allies, but know no more details than that! Any advice on what to bring... I'll start formulating some lists, but thought I'd put this up ASAP to see what advice comes! Help plox!

[baconslice]

Well tau, will decimate you at range. My advice, as much high toughness assault as you can.

[PumpkinHead]

Eldar are there to stop psychic powers and take out flyers. If I had to guess he will probably have farseer with runes of warding, ADL w/quad and a fire dragon exarch with crack shot manning it. Troops vary depending how he creates the rest of his list. If you are tailoring your list you will want to find ways to get up close and personal quickly, crack his fast skimming tanks, and swarm his troops. Good luck!

[0800hell]

Ymgarl GS and deepstriking dakka fexes dual tervs and flyrants.

[Anggul]

Also Biovores. Biovores are immense against Tau and Eldar infantry.

[swarmy]

If it's on foot and it's T4 or below devourer termagants in a mycetic spore with TL DS is a godsend. 15 in a spore should be able to splat/run off a full strength fire warrior unit without having to trudge up to the smurfs' rapid fire. One of Tau's big weaknesses is their crazy easy to kill/run off troops (T3 and easily failed leadership, especially with the help of devourers); This is compounded by prohibitively expensive transports. It's dubious that they will armor up with the Tau half of the army seeing as how their transports are 80pts a pop minimum, but I could be wrong. The exception will be the hammerhead with a railgun you'll undoubtedly have to face; So spread out for those S6 large blasts. Suits are as easy to kill as marines and usually lack the number of shots to wipe out larger units; also, they hate hive guard (T4 and no EW just like our warriors). They may bring broadsides for your MC's but I wouldn't be too scared. They are single shot guns and if you play your cover right it takes many turns to wear down our big bugs with them. I think all the cool eldar kids are all about the walkers with scatter lasers, farseers, and jetbikes. I honestly don't see eldar very often...

All together if it's outside a vehicle anything we have can splat it easily. I play against Tau fairly often and I can say all you really need is 1 or 2 scary distractions like deepstruck devourer termagants or the doom to disrupt their effective firepower. Someone else would have to tell you more about eldar tactics though.

[0800hell]

^this!

[tylertt]

My friend recently got Tau, and I haven't seen them in action too often. I can say that everyone else is bang on with biovores being a solid choice against them.

As for Eldar, I face them most often when I play and have seen a fair amount of lists out of them. Eldrad is one of the biggest guys to watch out for. He can really be tough to take down, especially if he is buffing units around him. Also if he takes powers from Divination, he can pass those buffs over to his Tau friends (I think?). But a Farseer or Eldrad can be 100% expected to pass these all out.

Aside from the Quad gun/Fire Dragon Exarch combo, Eldar can pack quite a punch with War Walkers, a unit of 3 with Scatter Lasers can dish out 24 S6 shots, add in guide from Eldrad if he keeps those powers, and this is one heavy platform which can really damage the big bugs. They are however very fragile if you can get close enough. This is one thing to keep in mind, as Tau do have very strong shots, but lack the volume of shots these guys for example can dish out.

The fire prism is another unit that can cause some trouble, but based on what the Tau can already bring to the table, this would be kind of a useless choice in my opinion.

One last thing that is very deadly, is a Seerer Council as well. The mere fact of them having fortune from a Farseer makes them very very hard to kill off. With their Warlocks, they can clean house on weaker units with their flamer powers. They also can pack a lot of heat in CC with their wounding on +2 always. The one big downside is that they are very expensive. Best way to deal with these guys is just high volumes of wounds to save. It is all attrition and grinding away at them.

It is hard to say what he will bring from the Eldar, as outdated as they are, their army has a lot of solid units that can play many different roles. But being that they are such, hopefully it can help narrow down what potentially he will bring to help out the Tau where they are lacking.

In my experience I've found that a Flyrant ruins their day more then anything. He can pop Walkers with ease and with the 12 shots, he can usually take down transports in one round of shooting, and can also ID almost every unit in their codex, aside from Eldrad, and the Avatar of course. Just keep in mind of the Quad gun combo potential.

Anyways thats my quick 2 cents on the Eldar as allies, and what you could potentially face.

[FTGTEvan]

Just a quick, generic list I threw together that could be effective:

Flyrant - TL Devs, Hive Commander - 285
3 Hive Guard - 150
8 Ymgarls - 184
Tervigon - CC, TS, AG - 205
Tervigon - TS, AG - 180
15 Devilgants in a Spore - 190
10 Termagants - 50
20 Gargoyles - 120
3 Biovores - 135

Like I said, a little generic, so can definitely be tailored to fit playstyle/models available. The thought here is that the Ymgarls, Devilgants, and CC Terv are kept in reserve. The Gargoyles and spawned/vanilla gants screen and try to take fire from the walking bugs. Hive Commander should give you a good shot of getting all your reserves Turn 2. Devilgants and Ymgarls cause immediate backfield problems while the Terv hopefully hunkers down a bit on a close flank, near an objective if possible. The thought is she'll either attract a lot of the available firepower away from the rest of your army, or she'll be avoided while fire is focused against the oncoming tide. Once everything comes in, the flyrant can be a little more bold, but definitely watch out for the quad gun that will probably be there manned by cover-ignoring FireDragon Exarch (or maybe Dark Reaper)

[PumpkinHead]

Dark reaper exarch on quad gun is iffy. I have seen it a couple of times but when the exarch is shooting at flying targets the rest of the unit is stuck snap shooting at it. So their firepower is wasted. Where as the FD is cheaper and you can upgrade him to have a flamer so at least when they get charged he will smoke a few guys.

EDIT:
I like your list. It looks pretty solid at 1500 pts. Also, watch out for marker lights forcing your flyrant to take grounding checks. The whole laser pointer to the eye is super annoying.

[apaosa]

If it helps, here is my competitive 1500.

Shal'El - TL Missle Pods, Iridium, Shield Drone, Blacksun Filter
6 Firewarriors w Devilfish - Smart Missle, Multi, D Pods, Targeting Array
6 Firewarriors w Devilfish - Smart Missle, Multi, D Pods, Targeting Array
Hammerhead - Ion, Smart Missles, Array, Multi, D Pods, BSF, Target Lock
Hammerhead - Ion, Smart Missles, Array, Multi, D Pods, BSF, Target Lock
Broadsides - Team Leader, 2 Shield Drones, 2 Target Locks, HW BSF

Farseer - Warding, Witnessing, 3 Powers (Div)
5 Firedragons - Tank Hunter, Crackshot
3 Jetbikes
Bastion w Quad

Hiveguard are the biggest threat, due to practically ignoring DPods + Jink. Biovores would clear the battlements and snipe the Dragons up top.

[DukeMantis]

If you think your opponent is going to be skimmer heavy hive guard are nice but if he plays mostly infantry id go for multiple units of ymgarl stealers, i like the doom in a spore against tau as well.

Biovores wipe out firewarrior blobs nicely as well

[epicswarmlord]

TRYGONS!!!!! TRYGONS!!!!! TRRRRRRYYYYYYGOOOOOONNNNNNSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!