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Please set aside your belief if the Rhino/Wave Serpent, as-is, is currently over/under costed. With that in mind, exactly how much do people think each bit of a transport is worth?

How much cheaper should the wave serpent be if the shield was optional?
That is, if we pretend the serpent was 200 points with the shield. If you think the shield is worth 40 points, then the serpent should be 160 base.


For another example, how much more should it cost to make the WS AV 13/13/10?
How about 12/12/11?
How about 12/11/11?
What about a rhino AV13/11/10?




[rant on]
Hopefully we can avoid the tangents of Schrodinger's Wave Serpent whine of "robblerobble wave serpent spam op" from the crowd of people that seems to assume that the serpent can fly across the board while simultaneously shooting a scatter laser at infantry, a brightlance at landraider, a starcannon at termies and the shield against everything while maintaining a 2+ reduce pen field and always having it's butt against the map edge and avoiding fast assault troops on an infinite board where there are only two units in isolation all the time being priced at bare minimum while having every upgrade option. /rant

Overpowered or not, the Serpent Shield is an amazing piece of kit that presents anything it's mounted on with a massive amount of tactical flexibility. Even used for its intended shielding purpose, it increases the survivability of the vehicle it's mounted on significantly. Well worth forty or even fifty points, even on a Rhino.

For reference, increasing a Rhino's FAV to 13 and giving it a pintle Heavy Flamer costs about 35 points, and the Serpent Shield is significantly better than that.

I'd say the Serpent Shield would be worth 40-50pts.

Some differences between the WS and Rhino:

WS over Rhino:
That shield,
Fast Skimmer,
Better armour values,
Larger transport capacity,
Turret guns,

Rhino has:
Fire points,
More access points,
Smaller profile and footprint.

So, those differences cost 80 points.
How much of that is the Serpent Shield? I'd say 30 points, at most.
A Falcon costs another 10 points, and gets the Pulse Laser in place of 6 seats, the turret gun and the shield.

A better comparison would be the Razorback versus the Wave Serpent, since both are armed transports whereas the Rhino can't perform the same battlefield role...that's where the points comparison really gets laughable.

The gun is probably worth 30 points. It really is that amazing.

The survivability is probably worth 10 on an AV11. Its marginally better than adding armor (5/6 downgrade pen to glance on front/sides vs 2/3 downgrade-equiv on all sides, but 1/2 or 1/3 vs ap2 or 1). Doesn't help with being hulled out. And at av11 3hp, it is probably going to get hulled easily.

A better comparison is probably the Devilfish. 80 pts vs 115. More similar role. Both skimmers. Both have no Fire Points.

A serpent is also much more in need of pen protection than a Rhino.
-3-4x the investment

-If a Rhino is immobilized, you then have footslogging Marines. Slow-ish, but t4 3+ is decently survivable. Or you can stay in and bunker down, using the fire points for the heavy/special weapon.
If a Serpent gets immobilized, they have no fire points, so the guys have to get out if they want to do anything. If they do, they are faster than Marines, but have 3/4 or 1/2 the range. And die by the bucketload. At t3 4+ or 5+, they die to incidental fire.

If a Rhino gets Weapon Destroyed, it loses a stormbolter. A Serpent loses either a weak sidearm or it's cannon.

The biggest difference, though, is on Explodes. Marines lose 1/6 members. Light casualties. Probably no morale check, and even then, a failure isn't terrible. Avengers lose a bunch (1/3 their number), probably roll morale, and while they will probably pass, a failure is terrible. Guardians lose about *half* their number, and have bad leadership.

Rhinos and Serpents are very different beasts. Compare it to a Devilfish instead.