New Eldar Hotness

I wanted to open up a thread for some new Eldar list building. I read the Codex, and I'm ready to get some Eldar on the table top. I've got several builds rolling around in my head, but I want to go ahead and scratch one out for you here.

I want to go back to an army with some serious shooting, but ideally keep mobility up as that seems to be key in 6th edition. So here's my attempt at getting started on that:

Eldar Primary / Tau Secondary

Farseer - 125
 -Runes of Witnessing, Jetbike
Warlock Council - 300
 -6 x Jetbikes
Wraithguard - 360
 -6 x Wraithcannon, 4 x D-scythes
Windrider Jetbikes - 51
Windrider Jetbikes - 51
Windrider Jetbikes - 51
Warpspiders - 95

Shadowsun - 135
Broadsides - 282
 -6 x Missle Drones, 3 x Interceptor
Riptide - 210
 -Plasma, Ion Accelerator, Early Warning, Velocity Tracker
Fire Warriors - 90
Fire Warriors - 90

Gives me 10 points to spare, but that's where I'm at right now. Here's how I envision this beast working. Shadowsun drops in with the Wraithguard giving them infiltrate. This allows them to get close for some T1 shooting. More than likely throw the Farseer in here too. Hopefully, he can guide and fortune them giving them all them all rerolls on the 2+ cover they should have. If you decide to charge them, you get 4d3 d-scthye hits. For those of you who haven't read this, that's real bad. They are S4 AP2 and cause instant death on a roll of a 6.

The warlocks cast a bunch of stuff and then race forward to apply for pressue, hopefully with a 2+ armour save. Maybe the Farseer hops in with them, maybe he doesn't. Just depends on what you are playing. Then the tau do work. The riptide and broadsides just attempt to blow the opponent off the board and intercept any fliers that make the mistake of coming on the board. Fire warriors screen them and provide supporting fire.

I know there's a lot of points tied up in a couple units, but I think I could make it work. Any thoughts from the crowd? I want to make this thing very effective. What are the holes I'm overlooking?

If my reading of the book is correct the Wraithguard must all take D-Scythes or none. Also I don't have the book in front of me but where are the 2+ cover saves on the Wraiths and 2+ armors on the warlocks coming from? I assume the Wraithguard deploy into cover? If so then that limits potential movement and placement.
 
As for the list the 3 things that stick out to me are the riptide, the warp spiders and the lack of upgrades or models in the units.  I would at least consider dropping the Warp Spiders for some more models in the jetbikes and Shuriken Cannons.  6 bikes with 2 cannons is only 122 points and is amazing. The riptide just seems to be extra, you already have a unit that your opponent has to deal with and there does not seem to be enough firepower to capitalize on the opportunity this creates. It may be different where you are but where I am 3 Broadsides and 1 Riptide is not enough.
 
It sounds from you description that the elder are, decoys for lack of a better term, and the tau do most of the lifting. If so then why not use the Tau as your primary? I don't recall off the top of my head how the warlock council works outside of the primary FOC and you lose 1 windrider squad but the gains seem to  be worth it.

Thanks for the input man. I always appreciate it. It takes a lot of poeple vetting a list to lead to really good ones. <Not that I've been playing good ones of late.>

I reread the d-scythes and I could make the case either way. It says the "entire unit", but the way I initially read that was to mean any number of models in that unit. I could definitely see myself being wrong on that though.

The hypothetical 2+ cover is coming from infiltrating them in cover, then Shadowsun granting them Stealth and Shrouding bonuses. I had it in my head that they had Battle Focus which would have given them more movement flexibility. Alas, I was wrong. 2+ armour could be generated from the warlocks if you infiltrated within 24" of them and had the spell. After more thought, I'm falling out of love with this unit as it just isn't as speedy as I would like. Maybe I could find a purpose for them in a wave serpent, but maybe they just need to be cut.

As for the Riptide, I really not sure on it. I have seen a lot of them used poorly, but I played one guy that used him pretty effectively. With the ability to regen his wounds, I think he has a place and can provide some utility. He's pretty solid flier defense, with skyfire and interceptor. Especially if you throw Guide on him.

The Broadsides eat things. They just straight cripple a unit a turn. They are a must have, but are potentially a little underequipped in this list.

Finally the Warspiders. I whole heartily agree with you. I probably need more and an exarch with a Spinerret Rifle and Fast Shot if they are going to be in the list. I also like your advice on the bigger units of windriders. Heldrakes are really the only major concern with windriders.

For the "why not run Tau as primary", mainly because I don't want to. I think playing Eldar will increase my skill as a general because they are far from a point and click army. Sadly, you can only get a Warlock unit if Eldar is primary.

I'm up for hearing more opinions on some Eldar lists. I'd like to see some other builds from people. I've got a couple more rattling around in my head that I'll get thrown up before long.

Thanks again for the advice.

I completely understand, most of this is just my playstyle and preferences.

Wraithguard are kind of on the obscure side when it comes to rules. I am still plotting on my lists but the games I have played so far the Crimson Hunter exarch butchers enemy air and I really like the new Fire Prism shots and plan to use them quite a bit.

After reflecting on your comment about "why not tau primary?", I decided its because it makes me feel dirty. This usually means its just the type of list I should be playing. So here's my take on a Tau primary list with allied Eldar.

Tau Primary - 1362

Commander - 135
 -Command & Control Node, Puretide Chip, Multi-spectrum

Broadsides x3 - 282
 -Early Warning Override
 -6 Missle Drones

Broadsides x3 - 210
 -Counterfire Defense System

Broadsides x3 - 210
 -Early Warning Override

Riptide - 210
 -TL Plasma Rifle, Ion Accelerator, Velocity Tracker, Early Warning Override

Fire Warriors x10 - 90
Fire Warriors x10 - 90

Shawdowsun - 135

Eldar - Allied

Spiritseer - 70

Wraithguard x5 - 160 + 130
 -Wave Serpent - Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon

War Walkers x2 - 125
 -Scatter Laser

This is pretty much a blow you off the board Tau list combined with some Eldar Harassment units. The Shadowsun and Spiritseer would attach to the Wraithguard in the Wave Serpent to push forward. The War Walkers are a bit of an afterthought. They could be switched out to an unit of Windriders w/ 2 shuriken cannons. War Walkers would just offer a bit more fire power.

I'm light on troops, but what are some other thoughts?

Id swap for the windriders, the war walkers are cute but expensive and TL shuriken cannons are nice but why not Flakks?

From the perspective of a tournament this tau/elder list is scary, very scary.

500 points in one wave serpent is a gamble and not vey agile outside the tank. I would have to see it in action. Your gun line packs a punch but would be vulnerable to deep strike and infiltrate/outflank. It seems you are putting all your chips in the "best defense is a good offense" strategy.

I like to call that the "Oregon Ducks" strategy. I agree with the succeptableness to Deep Strike/Infiltrate/Outflank, but try to combat that by having interceptor on 3 units. If a lot came in at once, I could be overwhelmed, but if it was just a unit or two at a time I could probably eat them. Having played Tau a couple times now, all the shooting out of turn they can do is huge.

I'm also concerned about the ability of the Wraithguard Serpent, but I want to try it real bad. Serpents are borderline broken from what I can tell, and pushing a bunch of Wraithguard forward that are troops forward would take the heat off of my Broadsides. They would have Stealth, Shrounding, Infiltrate, and whatever else the Seer could throw on them. For sure a Deathstar unit though. I always have to see deathstar's in action a few times before I can really judge effectiveness.

I gave in........ that's right I said it. I gave in to the fury that is now Tau. I've play tested a couple games with Tau primary now, and they are murder.

Monkey and I had a CSM/Tau vs Tau/Eldar throw down. He harnessed the power of two hell turkies, a khorne lord with the bmf axe, spawn, Typhus, and a bunch of zombies with the Tau. His Tau consisted of a commander with all the trinkets, 3 broadsides stacked with missles and missle drones, along with a Riptide and 2 units of Kroot. Let me start by saying.... Everyone should fear this. Two nasty hand to hand characters combined with ignores cover broadsides and ignores cover helldrakes. There is nowhere to hide.

To combat this, I ran primary Tau with the same commander as Monkey, shawdowsun, 6 broadsides w/full missiles and drones, 1 8 man unit of fire warriors, 2 10 man units of kroot, and a skyray defense tank. The eldar consisted of my main man Eldrad (MVP), 1 unit of 3 jetbikes, 20 man unit of guardians, and a 10 man unit of warp spiders all tooled up.

I won't go into volumes of detail, but I will say that Tau are going to be vulnerable to fast armies. This wasn't as fast as you could go and it still gave me plenty of trouble. Helldrake's simply eat things. I thought having two units of interceptor broadsides would make a dent in the heldrakes......... it did not.

I will recap what did and didn't work:
- Shadowsun - really neat, but isn't going to be that effective in many games. Numerous things ignore cover now. Infiltrate could still be big, but isn't going to be an every game type thing. He did get his points back with a lucky (guided) shot on the helldrake though.

- Eldrad - MVP baby. Eldrad is a man. I'm still not sure what all to do with him, but giving out 4 blessings a turn is a huge force multiplier, especially when two of them can automatically be prescience and guide.

- Skyray Missile Defense thingy - Its going to sit on the bench. No interceptor is a deal breaker. Your opponent effectively has two whole rounds to deal with it before it can ever even attempt to do its thing.

- Warp Spiders - Very good unit. When "guided" they can lay down some serious firepower, and then they can get away by making a run move then a jet pack move. They can really choose their fight, which is super valuable.

- Guardians - Bladestorm is good, but strength 4 is just meh and I had mobility issues with them all game. Plus a heldrake ate them up.

As for the game, the mighty tau slowly wore the CSM down through mass firepower and overwatch via supporting fire to pull out the victory.

That's my take away's from the last couple games I've played. The tau can really knock your socks off. The item it is weak in is AP 2, so I'm going to add a Riptide in. I also felt a little lacking in skyfire, so I think a quad-gun is needed. Mobility is always a plus, so I'll also add in some more jetbikes. I'll throw a new list up in a few days.

Great recap. I've been on the fence about using Shadowsun in a crisis suit unit - jumping around with lots of plasma and flamers. Combine that with a riptide and you get your AP2 compliments. Not sure about Kroot either. You talk about no place to hide. If Kroot don't get their cover save, they are toast with a 6+ armor save.

I have been working with Grey Knights as allies, but maybe I'll kick around some Tau/Eldar builds. The speed, psyker buffs, and being battle brothers (can use supporting fire if an eldar unit gets charged) might outweigh warpquake, servo skulls, and psycannons.

If only I could take 2 allies!