A Dark Eldar/Tau fun experiment

So i know Dark Eldar and Tau are Desperate Allies but i deceided to give it a go since my intended game strategy for this list will keep em well apart from each other and my goal is to create a fun heavy hitting assault army where Tau act as support/Distraction units.

I decided to throw it on here since i don't see many ally lists here other than with Eldar allies. any critique, suggestions etc. welcome, but keep in mind the list is intended to be over the top/Wacky.

I will be playing against a SM friend who always favors footslogging marines with relative little tank support. The battlefield always contains lots of area terrain and LOS blocking terrain.

So here is the list and my intended strategy for the list will be after the list.

Dark Eldar

HQ
1x Asdrubael Vect

3x Haemonculus
w/ Liquifier+ Venomblade


Troops
5x Kabalite Warriors
Venom+Cannon

5x Kabalite Warriors
Venom+Cannon

5x Kabalite Warriors
Venom+Cannon


Elite
5x Incubi
w/ klaivex & 1x Haemy, in a Raider W/ Dis. Cannon+Flickefield, Aethersails

4x Grotesque
w/ Abberation, Liquifier & 1x Haemy & Vect, in a Raider W/ Dis. Cannon+Flickefield, Aethersails

4x Grotesque
w/ Abberation, Liquifier & 1x Haemy, in a Raider W/ Dis. Cannon+Flickerfield, Aethersails


Heavy Support
1x Ravager
w/ Lances, Nightshields



Tau Allies

HQ
Shadowsun


Troops
6x Firewarriors


Fast Attack
5x Pathfinders
5x Pathfinders


Elite
3x Crisis Suits W/ 2x Plasma Rifles & CDS (Overwatch at BS2)


Heavy
1x Hammerhead
w/ Longstrike, Submunition Ammo, Blacksun Filter, Disruption pods.


The points should add up correctly, but thats not the point of the list.


As we know, Dark Eldar and Tau dont want to start within 6'' of each other, but i think thats ok with my battleplan for this list.

My overall strategy is to get the Grots and incuby in my opponents face asap using full movement+sails+turboboost to one of his flanks(Whichever is most saturated with potential targets), getting into range of a turn 2 assault should be easy.

My troops will be deployed to the objectives and their venoms will try to harass where they can with poison.

Now my problem with this rush is that i will be very exposed to enemy fire on his turn. Although i hope to use my front raiders with the Grots as cover for my incubi.

This is where my Tau allies come in. Shadowsun can infiltrate with the Crisis suits into area terrain close to my opponents deployment, close enough so that they can move up to 12'' forward and attack. My Pathfinders can also do their scout movement and move 12'' forward to someplace midboard for their markerlight support for Shadowsun and the Hammerhead. Their primary role is to supply markerlights for Shadowsun with atleast 2 markerlights for BS5 for the entire unit and depenting on cover i will want more markers for the Ignores Cover aswell, meaning that ideally i want 4 markerlights at all times for my Shadowsun/Crisis unit. Depending on how well i hit with my marker lights, maybe the second Pathfinder team can provide marker lights for my Hammerhead which already has BS 5 with Longstrike but lacks ignores Cover.

The Tau are here to put the scare and panic into my opponent. They will infiltrate on the opposite flank of my incoming raiders. With shadowsun being able to jump in with her crisis suits and rapidfire 12x S6 AP2 plasmashots hitting on 2s(with markerlight support) and shadowsun herself having 2x fusion blasters where 1 can shoot at a different unit, ideally blowing up a transport aswell as any unit of termies or smurfs and jump back 3d6 hopefully into area terrain again for a unitwide 2+ coversave(She confers Stealth & Shrouded to her unit) and to scare off attackers they overwatch at BS 2(CDS). These guys WILL wreck face on turn 1 and will definately put my opponent in a difficult spot as he can't ignore Shadowsun and hopefully focus less on my raiders which now should be standing right infront of his army, ready for a turn 2 assault.

The Ravager and Hammerhead will be picking off armor off where needed.

If everything works out as planned(Which it rarely does lol) my Tau and DE should stay well clear of each other since both forces are fast.

The obvious problems i see with the list is a lack of grenades on my assault units, Exposed raiders, what if i go second or he seizes the initiative, perhaps too powerful assault units which will be exposed to enemy fire after slaughtering a unit in my own turn. But hey, this list does look like sooo much fun. I can just imagine my opponents face as i unleash Shadowsun and her unit. Lolz will be had, I guarantee it. Or I will fail terribly like so many lists do which look good on paper.

What is your take on this list? Does it look like fun? Hopefully i havent missed something that completely throws my plan down the drain.

Thanks for reading

Looks like its mean enough. Did you try it? what happened?

I forgot to update on how the battle went, but it was glorious:)


As mentioned above i fought against space marines. My opponent brought a list partly tailored against DE, with alot of flamers and meltas for my assaulting raiders, since he knows i almost always play very aggressive. I dont play space marines myself, so im unable to tell you about everything in his list but some of the stuff he had was:


On the table on turn 1:
Coteaz
3x10 marines in rhinos - each squad had flamers and/or meltas.
2x5 marines on foot
1xPredator- Lots of las cannons
1x Dreadnought - Meltas and flamer
1x Techmarine w/servitors
(Possible some more units, cant remember)

Reserve:
Command squad with His warlord and a CC Dreadnought in a Storm raven
3x Bikes with meltas
1x Land speeder - Melta
1x Land speeder - Melta

He had some more units but i cant remember them all unfortunately and don't know all of the Space marine names eighter.

As a nasty surprise for me, he brought Coteaz which had me nervous as i was really hoping for first turn. Fortunately i won the initial roll off and he failed to seize on both of his rolls.



Deployment was Vanguard & Purge the Alien.

The table was set up so that we both had a large building in our deployment corner and lots of area terrain all over the table.

I deployed my raiders with the grots and incubi as close to the center of the table as i could, behind a forest. I also kept the pathfinders in the center, ready to do their scout movement onto a hill in the centre of the table. My Venoms were kept a bit further back as they didnt need to get as close in order to get into the fight, same with the ravager. The fire warriors were parked a bit away from the rest of my army as they were just filler, so i could get the rest of the Tau army. The Hammerhead was also placed pretty much by itself on one of my flanks where it had some cover and a good view of the battlefield.

My opponent placed every single unit of his behind and in the building in his corner, with just a dreadnought and a 10 man squad in a rhino standing a little bit further away on his flank.

When i did my scout movement with my pathfinders, they pretty much got in the center of the table on top of a small hill overlooking everything and more than 6'' away from my DE.

Shadowsun infiltrated with her Crisis Suits into a ruin 18'' away from the Dreadnought and the 10 marines in the Rhino on his flank.

The entire battleplan was focused around keeping focus away from my raiders on trun 1 and inflicting as much pain as possible with my Tau allies, forcing my opponent to react to them, while the even bigger threat was now standing at his doorstep.


Turn 1.


Movement phase
In the movement phase i moved like a bat out of hell straight into his army, aiming for the opposite side to where Shadowsun infiltrated. With Aethersails and moving flatout, the Grots and Incubi got there easily, stopping some 6'' from his forces. Upon arrival, i placed the raiders sideways trying to block as much LOS as i could and providing cover for my other raiders.

Shadowsun moved 12'' towards the rhino and the dreadnought on his opposite flank.

My venoms moved up at a slower pace, as i didnt want them closer than 36'' of whatever they shot at, which atm was nothing.


The shooting phase:
The first shot i took was with my Hammerhead at the Rhino close to Shadowsun. I blew it up with my first shot, but no marines got killed from the explosion. next my Pathfinders got 6 markerlight hits on the 10 unharmed marines. Shadowsun and her unit then shot the marines to oblivion with 2 marker lights used for ignore cover and the rest to raise their BS to 7. Shadowsun was also in meltarange of the Dreadnought and her wargear allows her to fire one of her Fusion blasters at a different target than the rest of her squad so she blew that Dreadnought to smithereens too.

The only other unit doing anything notable was my Ravager which blew up his predator.


The assault phase
Shadowsun and the crisis suits jumped some 12''-15'' into a forest close to his deployment, though far enough to be relatively safe from flamers, hoping for him to take the bait.

(If only you say my m8's face when i engaged with shadowsun, the dumbfound look when i collected 3x killpoints and firstblood with a single unit was priceless haha. Well i couldnt help but feel a bit bad too to be honest)


Enemy Turn 1.
Boy was he torn as to what he should do on his turn. He spend a good while weighing his options. He knew that the Grots and Incubi would rip him to shreds if they got the chance but never had he imagined that my Tau allies would strike so hard and would do it again next turn if he didnt do something about it.
In the end he split alot of his firepower between the raiders and Shadowsun but in doing so he failed to do much at all. Only my front raider got wrecked and 1 Crisis suit failed its 2+ cover twice. He was stuck in a corner with nowhere to go and he failed to do much whereas i soon had another turn in which to unleash the full fury of my army.



Turn 2.

I popped his transports open and liquified ALOT of the remaining troops, getting lots of AP1,2 & 3s (Also Vects Preferred enemy in conjunction with liquifiers and Obsidian orbs is amazing). The rest got Charged by the grots & Incubi.

He got tabled before his turn 2.


I loved the synergy between the Tau and DE. The Tau bringing the pain on turn 1 while the Dark eldar hit even harder on turn 2. Keeping the 6'' distance was very easy as long as you remember to do it (I forgot with 2 of my venoms, but no 1's were rolled.)
Getting the Tau allies was a quite big point investment, but it was so much fun and IMO very much worth it.

That was the gist of the battle. Some details were most likely left out as it already a couple of days since i played the game