With the changes to the shield as well as 4+ cover saves in the open along with being fast and AV12... not to mention twin linked goodness all around or ridiculously cheap lances (come on the upgrade guns are crazy cheap, I'd have to pay so much more for a razorback las cannon)

This thing has been the bane of my lists for the past few weeks. (pretty much every and any list)

I'm tempted to just throw down an allied detatchment of hydras from some sort of guard build (though I love the other heavy slots more but w/e)

It's more survivable and much much faster than a Land Raider to get things where they need to be and nearly immune to getting alpha striked themselves (unless you denied them going first and there was no cover or night fighting)

It's a transport that's putting out a ton of bs4 shooting at good toughness and even has rending for regular guns so it's got number of shots for hordes and effective fire for anti-elites. It can even buff itself to help shoot at fliers with decent strength guns all around. Crazy good transport so much so I need to figure out how to counter this thing as I think it will be part of the new Meta as much as flier spam.

Any ideas?

BTW, assaulting this thing has not done well for me as it's stupidly fast and can out distance any assault troops. Also even if you blow it up in assault, the troops inside can do rather well shooting you to death with rapid fire rending or AP2 flamers or tons of melta based on what's inside.

I've never seen Serpents described as crazy cheap. The guns are cheap because the points seem to be in the tank by default instead.

What are the armies you are talking about?

BTW, assaulting this thing has not done well for me as it's stupidly fast and can out distance any assault troops. Also even if you blow it up in assault, the troops inside can do rather well shooting you to death with rapid fire rending or AP2 flamers or tons of melta based on what's inside.

Skimmers in cc got a hit. If you blow up a tank via shooting, your unit can charge the remnants.
But you're right, its not a good idea to charge a unit with AP2 flamers.

The best counters to Serpents will be anything with high strength that ignores cover. Anything to get rid of that 4+ basically.

Highlights include; Dark Reapers with the Str8 missiles (glance them down), or anything Tau.

i'm sort of assuming you're playing marines based on your examples and allies suggestions.

Because of the shield, i think you have to just plan to glance them to death, so, as usual, the answer (for marines) is the rifleman dread. a squadron of typhoon speeders wouldn't be a bad idea either (that's 6 missiles/turn)

I think high strength is far less important (the shield will just make a glance 5/6 of the time) than getting a high number of shots into it.

also, despite what the internet would have you believe, it's not exactly a fabulous anti-flyer platform. you could use Storm Talons (again with a high rate of fire weapon)

Well, the Lanchester square law particularly applies to Serpents and an Eldar player can make good use of it: doubling (2) the tanks needs four fold (2^2) fire power to deal with them. This is particularly hard vs Serpents due to their AV12.

I've played against new Eldar a couple of times now and I agree Wave Serpents are hiliarously powerful if you use the set up you described.

Against my Tau army I didn't have any issue with them though, with so much cover ignoring hits being able to get spread around they weren't a problem long term.

It was when I came to face a Wave Serpent heavy list with my vanilla marines that it became just plain painful. Despite having numerous missiles and lascannons (including a talon as someone suggested), the uber cover and pen-to-glance wargear made a mockery of what would have previously been a list apt to deal with reasonable amounts of moderate to high AV vehicles. I agree that lots of weaker fire is now the only way to go if you can't get ignore cover high strength, but marines in particular aren't swimming in mass STR6+ shots required to glance one to death (and keeping in mind given how strong they are now you'll rarely see single serpent lists).

I wasted away a game I knew I'd lost early on with vanilla marines just testing how long a conventional TAC list would take to kill a couple and they didn't manage it. In the end the thing that did take one out was rear armour in a lucky assault so I agree with someone saying above getting rid of them that way works if you can catch them and then survive the storm afterwards when you're all clumped together. If the only army you have is vanilla marines I'd say just wait it out and hope we get some shiny upgrades in the new codex in a couple of months. If you want a short term answer bring in Tau allies and have them do all the work.

I haven't tested my Chaos against them yet, I suspect since I go Nurgle themed they'd stand a better chance than my vanilla, but may still struggle without auto cannon spam Havoks.

 Flik wrote:
I've played against new Eldar a couple of times now and I agree Wave Serpents are hiliarously powerful if you use the set up you described.

If the only army you have is vanilla marines I'd say just wait it out and hope we get some shiny upgrades in the new codex in a couple of months. If you want a short term answer bring in Tau allies and have them do all the work.

You should be able to get a couple of Storm Talons behind the Serpents to fire on the rear armour. Remember, the shield doesn't work on hits to rear armour, and Talons have a 360 arc of fire turret.

Polecat wrote:

 Flik wrote:
I've played against new Eldar a couple of times now and I agree Wave Serpents are hiliarously powerful if you use the set up you described.

If the only army you have is vanilla marines I'd say just wait it out and hope we get some shiny upgrades in the new codex in a couple of months. If you want a short term answer bring in Tau allies and have them do all the work.

You should be able to get a couple of Storm Talons behind the Serpents to fire on the rear armour. Remember, the shield doesn't work on hits to rear armour, and Talons have a 360 arc of fire turret.

Wait is it 360 arc for the front mounted and side mounted? I've been playing that the assault cannon is 360 since you can pivot it like that on the model but not the missiles/lascannons.

ya, my drop pod marines got pretty much rolled over without much of a chance. (I mostly got side armor cause I didn't know it didn't work in the back, heck the Eldar player probably forgot that side of things too so that's a good lesson learned by me anyway -next time I'll get him to read the full rules out of his book. It basically negated a full squad of combi-melta sternguard. 10 shots, 5 hit, 1 fail to pen, all converted to glances and he passed 3 cover 4+ cover saves so just took 1 HP) Incidentially, the WS is also fairly good vs necrons as the crons really don't have any ignore cover and lance cryptecs need those pens. Wraiths got melted by all the return fire and they are hard to catch. The WS pretty much took the GK apart as well and was actually somewhat worse as I had even fewer bodies for the most part. IG sort of held its own but my AV 12 isn't as nearly as good as their AV12. Nm also that fire dragons make a mess out of any tank squadrons. I can't stop him from reaching my lines with the fire dragons in one of those things so it just melts my face off.

It's really problematic when there's about 4-5 of the damn things.

 Flik wrote:

Polecat wrote:

 Flik wrote:
I've played against new Eldar a couple of times now and I agree Wave Serpents are hiliarously powerful if you use the set up you described.

If the only army you have is vanilla marines I'd say just wait it out and hope we get some shiny upgrades in the new codex in a couple of months. If you want a short term answer bring in Tau allies and have them do all the work.

You should be able to get a couple of Storm Talons behind the Serpents to fire on the rear armour. Remember, the shield doesn't work on hits to rear armour, and Talons have a 360 arc of fire turret.

Wait is it 360 arc for the front mounted and side mounted? I've been playing that the assault cannon is 360 since you can pivot it like that on the model but not the missiles/lascannons.

Yea just the one you can pivot.

A trick I've found to use against Drop Pod marines and Storm Talons is to move first and then keep both Serpents facing sideways "ass-to-ass" in order to make it impossible to get rear-armour.

Wave Serpents got so much better in this edition, but are still really expensive and can see the points rack up fairly quickly.

Iranna.

 sudojoe wrote:
ya, my drop pod marines got pretty much rolled over without much of a chance. (I mostly got side armor cause I didn't know it didn't work in the back, heck the Eldar player probably forgot that side of things too so that's a good lesson learned by me anyway -next time I'll get him to read the full rules out of his book. It basically negated a full squad of combi-melta sternguard. 10 shots, 5 hit, 1 fail to pen, all converted to glances and he passed 3 cover 4+ cover saves so just took 1 HP) Incidentially, the WS is also fairly good vs necrons as the crons really don't have any ignore cover and lance cryptecs need those pens. Wraiths got melted by all the return fire and they are hard to catch. The WS pretty much took the GK apart as well and was actually somewhat worse as I had even fewer bodies for the most part. IG sort of held its own but my AV 12 isn't as nearly as good as their AV12. Nm also that fire dragons make a mess out of any tank squadrons. I can't stop him from reaching my lines with the fire dragons in one of those things so it just melts my face off.

It's really problematic when there's about 4-5 of the damn things.

Wraiths and scarabs can shred wave serpents in cc.

Double court double stormtek. 5 warriors and 2 stormteks with assault 4 haywire aveage 6.6 hp/turn without jink, 3.33 with a 4+ jink

IG can deploy double melta stormies with 1d6 scatter. deep strike and melta in the butt, serp shield is front side only. double plas can also work. Not as good as crons, but nice.

The combi melta sternguard was operator error. If they podded into the rear of the serp those 5 hits would have been 5 pens, still would have lost 3 to the 4+, maybe 4, but the ap1 pen would stay a pen because it's rear armor.

gk interceptors recieve presciene before shunting to the rear. Not as good as necrons or IG

I have only played eldar and after a few games (4) using the new codex things have certainly got easier. I would suggest opponents use those high str weapons like meltas and lascannons if only to stop eldar players from using the shield in their shooting phase as this is what has made them very nasty.

The other thing to note is what is in them, 5 direavengers are not much threat and they probably won't drop out until an objective is clear, fire dragons are going after your heavy vehicles...my point is, you should know what/where the serpent will end up, make sure you are behind it as suggested already.

The other thing you can try is no reserves, you want as many shots on the field 1st turn as possible no use having your best troops not come on because serpents and their contents have cleared the board before you have your 3rd turn (this happened on the weekend to my opponent in a 1650 point battle against imp gaurd, I did not remove a single model)

After half a summer break of games of my marines vs Eldar I've become aware of two things.

1.) The Eldar player is the antithesis to my playing style. I play lists that have units that I think are cool and he plays lists with units that he thinks are good.

2.) As a condition of the above, Eldar vs Codex Marines are also an antithesis. Marines have generally elite shooting, and Eldar have innumerable cover and invuln saves that Codex Marines have a really hard time getting through. Couple this with a competitive player and there is very little chance for the vanilla marine player. Anything a marine can do well is done better and cheaper by Eldar.

The easiest way to beat them is have lots and lots of medium strength shooting, but marines don't have access to that without list tailoring, which is something I refuse to do.

That said, my experience has been generally soft lists of space marines against generally hard lists of Eldar, but it is not fun when 2 land speeders with multimeltas deep strike next to a squad of war walkers, hit and pen all four shots, and have two of them blocked by the Piss In Your Cheerios save, and end up killing 1 walker with the results. An extreme example, but things like this occur frequently with the new Eldar jink saves. Generally don't have fun playing against the combination of Comp player and nasty book.

Also in response to the discussion about the Wave Serpent being a cheap vehicle. Consider this. The Wave Serpent has a 1/72 chance per hit of being destroyed by a lascannon. A Land Raider has a 1/9 chance per hit of being destroyed by a bright lance.

eje005 wrote:
After half a summer break of 2500 point games of my vanilla marines vs Eldar I've become aware of two things.

1.) The Eldar player is the antithesis to my playing style. I play lists that have units that I think are cool and he plays lists with units that he thinks are good.

2.) As a condition of the above, Eldar vs Codex Marines are also an antithesis. Marines have generally elite shooting, and Eldar have innumerable cover and invuln saves that Codex Marines have a really hard time getting through. Couple this with a competitive player and there is very little chance for the vanilla marine player. Anything a marine can do well is done better and cheaper by Eldar.

The easiest way to beat them is have lots and lots of medium strength shooting, but marines don't have access to that without list tailoring, which is something I refuse to do.

That said, my experience has been generally soft lists of space marines against generally hard lists of Eldar, but it is not fun when 2 land speeders with multimeltas deep strike next to a squad of war walkers, hit and pen all four shots, and have two of them blocked by the Piss In Your Cheerios save, and end up killing 1 walker with the results. An extreme example, but things like this occur frequently with the new Eldar jink saves. Generally don't have fun playing against the combination of Comp player and nasty book.

Also in response to the discussion about the Wave Serpent being a cheap vehicle. Consider this. The Wave Serpent has a 1/72 chance per hit of being destroyed by a lascannon. A Land Raider has a 1/9 chance per hit of being destroyed by a bright lance.

Pretty much exactly the scenario I am also in, but when my marines lose without a challenge I just remind myself that my Tau destroys new Eldar equally as easily

eje005 wrote:

Also in response to the discussion about the Wave Serpent being a cheap vehicle. Consider this. The Wave Serpent has a 1/72 chance per hit of being destroyed by a lascannon. A Land Raider has a 1/9 chance per hit of being destroyed by a bright lance.

Unless you play Black Templars, in which case said Land Raider will have a 0% chance of being destroyed by the lance.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

eje005 wrote:

Also in response to the discussion about the Wave Serpent being a cheap vehicle. Consider this. The Wave Serpent has a 1/72 chance per hit of being destroyed by a lascannon. A Land Raider has a 1/9 chance per hit of being destroyed by a bright lance.

Unless you play Black Templars, in which case said Land Raider will have a 0% chance of being destroyed by the lance.

Which is why we bring the Fire Prisms

Flik wrote:
2.) As a condition of the above, Eldar vs Codex Marines are also an antithesis. Marines have generally elite shooting, and Eldar have innumerable cover and invuln saves that Codex Marines have a really hard time getting through. Couple this with a competitive player and there is very little chance for the vanilla marine player. Anything a marine can do well is done better and cheaper by Eldar.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, the Lanchester square law particularly applies to Serpents and an Eldar player can make good use of it: doubling (2) the tanks needs four fold (2^2) fire power to deal with them. This is particularly hard vs Serpents due to their AV12.

Both of these really; with the durability that Wave Serpents have now, you're unlikely to be winning a long-ranged shooting war against a Mechdar list as their shooting and durability is, per point, superior to pretty much everyone else. This means getting in close, be it Assault (which screws up Wave Serpents very very quickly), or DS or Podding in (though in this case you'll still have to bypass a 4+ coversave).

chorde wrote:I have only played eldar and after a few games (4) using the new codex things have certainly got easier. I would suggest opponents use those high str weapons like meltas and lascannons if only to stop eldar players from using the shield in their shooting phase as this is what has made them very nasty.

The other thing to note is what is in them, 5 direavengers are not much threat and they probably won't drop out until an objective is clear, fire dragons are going after your heavy vehicles...my point is, you should know what/where the serpent will end up, make sure you are behind it as suggested already.

The other thing you can try is no reserves, you want as many shots on the field 1st turn as possible no use having your best troops not come on because serpents and their contents have cleared the board before you have your 3rd turn (this happened on the weekend to my opponent in a 1650 point battle against imp gaurd, I did not remove a single model)

In my IG game I perfectly knew where those fire dragons were and they just went straight for me coming in from one side to make me block LOS of some of my own units (LR's are nice big LOS blockers for both sides lol). The fast skimmer rule makes the damn thing go 12+18 and then 6+6 for the fire dragons to plop them in my face by turn 2. That's a 42 inch move and shoot by turn 2. Pretty damn impressive. I'm not sure the fire dragons can battle focus but if they could, that'd be an extra 4 inches avg for them for a 46' move and then you add their weapons. 3+ cover for that turn also is quite annoying.

I made the typical mistake of getting just high str of attacks (thinking he'd probably try his wraith knight again) but nothing that ignored cover and spread out a bit too much in my deployment zone.(though it's kind of hard not to when you have too many tanks) The LR squadron was also anchoring one flank too which I usually do to block the AV10 chimera sides with at least some AV13. Also I went first with night fighting lol Was kind of lousy for the first turn shooting as he still had a 4+ cover since he was hiding it behind ruins. I did search light it but wasn't really that useful as typically ws's do refused flanks deployment extremely well.

Wraiths and scarabs can shred wave serpents in cc.

Oh I know they do, I've taken down 1-2 before with them except you can't really catch them that well. They move 12 and can still fire at you and unless you pincer them, they can be very hard to impossible to catch in assault. Last time I finally got into assault with the damn thing, the guys inside just came out and shot up the already depleted wraith squad (since they have quite a few tanks and rarely will I be able to multi-assault such fast things.) Also, since as above, they can go 12+18' and I can do a 12+6' run or a 12 + avg 9 in charge, it'd be hard to actually catch them in assault as they are really fast and can see your assault coming most times so will need 2 units in general to pin them in place.

Double court double stormtek. 5 warriors and 2 stormteks with assault 4 haywire aveage 6.6 hp/turn without jink, 3.33 with a 4+ jink

(I kind of like this but dismounted cryptec is not very survivable and you need to be at 12' range. The ws weapons outrange you pretty heavily. You can get those guys with night scythes drop to the rear though so I still do find good merit in this strat. Good work! - however don't expect the cryptec to survive all that well afterwards though lol)

IG can deploy double melta stormies with 1d6 scatter. deep strike and melta in the butt, serp shield is front side only. double plas can also work. Not as good as crons, but nice.

I might need to start taking some melta stormies again. Haven't messed with them in about a year. I shall experiement with them again =)

The combi melta sternguard was operator error. If they podded into the rear of the serp those 5 hits would have been 5 pens, still would have lost 3 to the 4+, maybe 4, but the ap1 pen would stay a pen because it's rear armor.

Since the heldrake, my SM's have been getting shafted one codex after another. Daemons were kind of ok but with helturkey and tau it was huge losses but still sorta hung in there sometimes with some more terminators but the new eldar are so anti-MEQ or elites in general, it's given me a nasty taste for power armored troops completely. I'm hoping that at least points adjustments will let me field more bodies. Not enough models to survive all the firepower now a days and bolters can't even hurt the wraith knight or wraith lord makes me think GW just hates SM now.

gk interceptors recieve presciene before shunting to the rear. Not as good as necrons or IG

I've been leaning more towards more interceptors but it's usually a points problem. The squad of 10 interceptors + 2 psycannons is 280 points. They can kill a what? 135-150 points ws? then they usually get wiped out both by the disembarking troops and other support fire. I'd imagine I'd have to make a pure interceptors list to overwhelm the enemy to allow some to live to be able to do something afterwards. It's probably where GK will have to go as we get later into 6th but it definitely doesn't look that good.

4 psycannon shots (moved so it's assault 2) even with divination is going to average 3.5 hits and still needs a 3+ to glance so will only do about 2 Pens on average which can still be jinked at 4+. The rest of the storm bolters can probably add up another 2 glances will probably total a 1/6 chance to explode and 5/6 not to destroy and just down to 1 hull point on average. Then you still proceed to lose the squad)

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

eje005 wrote:

Also in response to the discussion about the Wave Serpent being a cheap vehicle. Consider this. The Wave Serpent has a 1/72 chance per hit of being destroyed by a lascannon. A Land Raider has a 1/9 chance per hit of being destroyed by a bright lance.

Unless you play Black Templars, in which case said Land Raider will have a 0% chance of being destroyed by the lance.

But then you still lose because your're playing Black Templars :p

Both of these really; with the durability that Wave Serpents have now, you're unlikely to be winning a long-ranged shooting war against a Mechdar list as their shooting and durability is, per point, superior to pretty much everyone else. This means getting in close, be it Assault (which screws up Wave Serpents very very quickly), or DS or Podding in (though in this case you'll still have to bypass a 4+ coversave).

But that's the issue I have. With a vanilla marines all comers fun list there's no chance against any specialty themed Eldar list since the marines are going to have high strength to try and cover their anti armor bases, and as we've discussed high strength doesn't work. So I would HAVE to know I'm playing Eldar, and I would HAVE to know if he's going mech. I don't like doing that. I don't mind losing, when I play against this player and he brings other armies I still commonly lose, but when it's against Eldar I get wiped off the table by turn 4 commonly. That's not really fun for anyone but a sadist or a masochist.

 Spartan089 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

eje005 wrote:

Also in response to the discussion about the Wave Serpent being a cheap vehicle. Consider this. The Wave Serpent has a 1/72 chance per hit of being destroyed by a lascannon. A Land Raider has a 1/9 chance per hit of being destroyed by a bright lance.

Unless you play Black Templars, in which case said Land Raider will have a 0% chance of being destroyed by the lance.

But then you still lose because your're playing Black Templars :p

What? Preposterous! The Black Knight always triumphs!

More on-topic, could Thunderfire Cannons do anything useful? They're pretty good now with the 6th ed artillery rules, so they wouldn't be worthless against other Codices, and they cause him to move as difficult terrain. Is the Subterranean Blast S6 though? I'm assuming the Ignores Cover one isn't.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Spartan089 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

eje005 wrote:

Also in response to the discussion about the Wave Serpent being a cheap vehicle. Consider this. The Wave Serpent has a 1/72 chance per hit of being destroyed by a lascannon. A Land Raider has a 1/9 chance per hit of being destroyed by a bright lance.

Unless you play Black Templars, in which case said Land Raider will have a 0% chance of being destroyed by the lance.

But then you still lose because your're playing Black Templars :p

What? Preposterous! The Black Knight always triumphs!

More on-topic, could Thunderfire Cannons do anything useful? They're pretty good now with the 6th ed artillery rules, so they wouldn't be worthless against other Codices, and they cause him to move as difficult terrain. Is the Subterranean Blast S6 though? I'm assuming the Ignores Cover one isn't.

The ignore cover one is STR5. I can also testify that in general thunderfires are great, but against a serpent spam list there's nothing but the tanks to shoot at and even if (like I commonly do) you get very lucky with hits using it, you're still glancing on a 6. Now obviously they'd be great on the content of the serpent when/if it gets destroyed but with it moving up table so fast it just doesn't work as well as you'd think. They will turbo boost into your deployment first turn and, if particularly in a cheesy mood, bring the wargear that lets them fire one weapon after doing so.

Wave Serpents can be annoying, yes. 4+ cover just for having moved means that in addition to the fact that you'll probably never get penetrating hits against it, it will also ignore half of your hits outright.

In my experience, it's best to treat them like a monstrous creature when assigning target priority: unless you are willing and able to devote all of the firepower necessary to bring one down, consider what other targets there are on the board that might be a better place to put your firepower., and when you choose to bring one down, do not stop until it is brought down. In most cases, the difference in potential lethality to your army between a wave serpent with full health and a wave serpent with one hull point remaining is precisely nothing.

Also, pay attention to what guns it fires. If the wave serpent fires its d6+1 serpent shield discharge, it loses its ability to ignore penetrating hits until the Eldar player's next turn, and you've got an opening in which you may be able to kill it more easily, and it is now possible to cripple it even if you don't kill it.

Except what happens when your opponent brings 6 serpents and 3 fireprisims, if it takes your entire army's volume of fire to bring one down then the rest will be left unimpeded. Massed Serpents arnt balanced right now considering not enough armies have access to high Str cover ignoring weapons.

I play Eldar and I see the frustration that Serpents with holofields can cause. My Eldar soul sings with joy at the destruction of Khaine's enemies while my Human heart weeps as I want my opponent to have a good game. In my King-Fu practice we are taught that you attack an opponents weakness not their strength. I recently played a game where turn 1 and 2 my opponent tried taking down my two Serpents to no success and I saw the frustration within him. Turn three he switched targets to non holofield vehicles and other units and had a much greater effect, so much so that I was compelled to use the Serpent Shield as a weapon. Once I did this he easily killed one of the serpents. So my point is that there are times to ignore the Sepents and focus all on the other units to kill what you can and just maybe this might have enough effect where the Eldar player will feel the need to fire the Serpent Shield to make up for the firepower they lost to your shooting. A holofield equiped Serpent is very durable, shoot around it and force the Eldar to think about shooting the shield. As a side note for Codex Marines, bikes and attack bikes are great.

I wish you well.

 Spartan089 wrote:
Except what happens when your opponent brings 6 serpents and 3 fireprisims, if it takes your entire army's volume of fire to bring one down then the rest will be left unimpeded. Massed Serpents arnt balanced right now considering not enough armies have access to high Str cover ignoring weapons.

I dunno, I kind of suspect that the biggest reason this army is difficult to face is because the current meta is built towards dealing with monstrous creatures instead of anti-vehicle. People are used to having, say, one or two meltaguns in their list and finding that sufficient. Do you suppose that 6 serpents and 3 fire prisms are significantly harder to bring down than, say, that IG Forge World armored company that lets you take all Leman Russes all the time (9 or so at 1500, more at higher point values)? Or, again at 1500 points, a list that consists of 1 forge world land raider with that annoying attachment that makes it immune to the lance and melta special rules, three other land raiders (one of which has that multi-shot template that ignores cover), two minimum sized units of scouts, one of those bumblebee flier things, and whatever cheap HQ it is that can repair vehicles while inside them?

Not to say that 4+ cover isn't annoying, just that 4+ cover plus most people not gearing their lists to deal with mass vehicles makes Jack a dull boy.

I dunno, I kind of suspect that the biggest reason this army is difficult to face is because the current meta is built towards dealing with monstrous creatures instead of anti-vehicle. People are used to having, say, one or two meltaguns in their list and finding that sufficient. Do you suppose that 6 serpents and 3 fire prisms are significantly harder to bring down than, say, that IG Forge World armored company that lets you take all Leman Russes all the time (9 or so at 1500, more at higher point values)? Or, again at 1500 points, a list that consists of 1 forge world land raider with that annoying attachment that makes it immune to the lance and melta special rules, three other land raiders (one of which has that multi-shot template that ignores cover), two minimum sized units of scouts, one of those bumblebee flier things, and whatever cheap HQ it is that can repair vehicles while inside them?

Not to say that 4+ cover isn't annoying, just that 4+ cover plus most people not gearing their lists to deal with mass vehicles makes Jack a dull boy

I disagree strongly. I once fired a devastator team of 4 rockets and a devastator team of 4 lascannons at a falcon and with statistical hits and pens, did 1 hull point. My lists are built to handle armor plenty and they flop against Eldar armor. I commonly run two landspeeders with 2 multimeltas each that deep strike and nuke Russes or anything they want. Except Eldar vehicles just don't care. If Anti-Tank is str 8 and 9 weapons then I have it, and it does not work against Eldar. What DOES work against eldar is spamming strength 7, but you would be crazy to do that if you want to make an all comers list. Anti-Tank against Eldar is not the same as Anti Tank against anything else, and that's why it's frustrating to deal with; it breaks any all comers list with out trying.

What's the likelihood of catching them with fast moving assaulter like Spawn or Maulerfiends?

Equal points of either should bust one open.

re: devastator team - the fact that your opponent was apparently the Chosen of the Dice Gods is not representative of Eldar as a whole.

Two landspeeders with two multimeltas each is what, four shots per round? If that's all you're taking in most lists, it sounds like you just proved my point. Absolute best case scenario, that can kill two tanks in a turn (and then will get hosed by the rest of the list). That's not going to do much against an armored company. Against Eldar and Tau, each of whose skimmers are going to be benefiting from a 4+ cover save, meaning half of your hits are going away. Needs moar dakka.

 Marsyas wrote:
re: devastator team - the fact that your opponent was apparently the Chosen of the Dice Gods is not representative of Eldar as a whole.

Two landspeeders with two multimeltas each is what, four shots per round? If that's all you're taking in most lists, it sounds like you just proved my point. Absolute best case scenario, that can kill two tanks in a turn (and then will get hosed by the rest of the list). That's not going to do much against an armored company. Against Eldar and Tau, each of whose skimmers are going to be benefiting from a 4+ cover save, meaning half of your hits are going away. Needs moar dakka.

It's not all that I take. It's usually that and the devastators, plus what ever missile launchers are in the tac squads. Also vanilla marines don't have access to high strength high shots, which is what I've been saying. Apart from rifleman dreadnought spam, there's no high shots str 7+ in the book. And if I'm taking those auto cannons my list is going to be ineffective against anything but Eldar and Ork Trukks.

My brother plays 3 Serpents in 1000 point battle. No chance for my IG, even with vendettas...


btw. Stormies with melta are terrible against WS. 2 shots at BS 4 against 4+ jink and 3 hull points? Not so much given the fact the stormies are dead next turn (105 points gone).

 sudojoe wrote:
With the changes to the shield as well as 4+ cover saves in the open along with being fast and AV12... not to mention twin linked goodness all around or ridiculously cheap lances (come on the upgrade guns are crazy cheap, I'd have to pay so much more for a razorback las cannon)

Except you get 2 Razorbacks with lascannons for the same points as one Wave Serpent. Given the upgrades you describe, you actually get 2 Razorbacks and a few Marines.

 sudojoe wrote:

It's more survivable a... than a Land Raider .

That's objectively false.

 minigun762 wrote:
What's the likelihood of catching them with fast moving assaulter like Spawn or Maulerfiends?

Equal points of either should bust one open.

Well my Serpent list has two squads of Fire Dragons that handle walkers nicely. Spawns are a different threat. But they are not so common. Hello Helldrakes.

 Marsyas wrote:

 Spartan089 wrote:
Except what happens when your opponent brings 6 serpents and 3 fireprisims, if it takes your entire army's volume of fire to bring one down then the rest will be left unimpeded. Massed Serpents arnt balanced right now considering not enough armies have access to high Str cover ignoring weapons.

I dunno, I kind of suspect that the biggest reason this army is difficult to face is because the current meta is built towards dealing with monstrous creatures instead of anti-vehicle. People are used to having, say, one or two meltaguns in their list and finding that sufficient. Do you suppose that 6 serpents and 3 fire prisms are significantly harder to bring down than, say, that IG Forge World armored company that lets you take all Leman Russes all the time (9 or so at 1500, more at higher point values)? Or, again at 1500 points, a list that consists of 1 forge world land raider with that annoying attachment that makes it immune to the lance and melta special rules, three other land raiders (one of which has that multi-shot template that ignores cover), two minimum sized units of scouts, one of those bumblebee flier things, and whatever cheap HQ it is that can repair vehicles while inside them?

Not to say that 4+ cover isn't annoying, just that 4+ cover plus most people not gearing their lists to deal with mass vehicles makes Jack a dull boy.

I hate to say it, but I don't think bringing up IG Armored Company is a worthy discussion. That list is mental, and not really fun to play with or against for most of the gamers out there. It is one of those things that gives FW a bad name in the world of 'Can I bring my FW stuff?' conversations.

That being said, I do think that 9 AV12 4+ jinkers are harder to bring down than those 9 LRs. Those LRs aren't mobile and can be dealth with in assault exactly as easily as the Serpents. The only difference is the side and front armor values that I don't think balance for the 4+ save versus all. LRs can be LoS blocked much easier than Serpents, and those LRs aren't bringing nasties to your doorstep.

Additionally, IG Armored Company lists don't do well with that many LRs in an objective setting. Whereas the Serpent-spam certainly can.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

eje005 wrote:

 Marsyas wrote:
re: devastator team - the fact that your opponent was apparently the Chosen of the Dice Gods is not representative of Eldar as a whole.

Two landspeeders with two multimeltas each is what, four shots per round? If that's all you're taking in most lists, it sounds like you just proved my point. Absolute best case scenario, that can kill two tanks in a turn (and then will get hosed by the rest of the list). That's not going to do much against an armored company. Against Eldar and Tau, each of whose skimmers are going to be benefiting from a 4+ cover save, meaning half of your hits are going away. Needs moar dakka.

It's not all that I take. It's usually that and the devastators, plus what ever missile launchers are in the tac squads. Also vanilla marines don't have access to high strength high shots, which is what I've been saying. Apart from rifleman dreadnought spam, there's no high shots str 7+ in the book. And if I'm taking those auto cannons my list is going to be ineffective against anything but Eldar and Ork Trukks.

What about a couple Assault-cannon laden Landspeeders? They'd do well against Eldar/Ork/Tau vehicles with the Landspeeder manueverability.

 Flik wrote:
I've played against new Eldar a couple of times now and I agree Wave Serpents are hiliarously powerful if you use the set up you described.

Against my Tau army I didn't have any issue with them though, with so much cover ignoring hits being able to get spread around they weren't a problem long term.

It was when I came to face a Wave Serpent heavy list with my vanilla marines that it became just plain painful. Despite having numerous missiles and lascannons (including a talon as someone suggested), the uber cover and pen-to-glance wargear made a mockery of what would have previously been a list apt to deal with reasonable amounts of moderate to high AV vehicles. I agree that lots of weaker fire is now the only way to go if you can't get ignore cover high strength, but marines in particular aren't swimming in mass STR6+ shots required to glance one to death (and keeping in mind given how strong they are now you'll rarely see single serpent lists).

I wasted away a game I knew I'd lost early on with vanilla marines just testing how long a conventional TAC list would take to kill a couple and they didn't manage it. In the end the thing that did take one out was rear armour in a lucky assault so I agree with someone saying above getting rid of them that way works if you can catch them and then survive the storm afterwards when you're all clumped together. If the only army you have is vanilla marines I'd say just wait it out and hope we get some shiny upgrades in the new codex in a couple of months. If you want a short term answer bring in Tau allies and have them do all the work.

I haven't tested my Chaos against them yet, I suspect since I go Nurgle themed they'd stand a better chance than my vanilla, but may still struggle without auto cannon spam Havoks.

I've read that using a librarian to seize control of some shooting on the eldar side is a nice trick!

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 sudojoe wrote:
With the changes to the shield as well as 4+ cover saves in the open along with being fast and AV12... not to mention twin linked goodness all around or ridiculously cheap lances (come on the upgrade guns are crazy cheap, I'd have to pay so much more for a razorback las cannon)

Except you get 2 Razorbacks with lascannons for the same points as one Wave Serpent. Given the upgrades you describe, you actually get 2 Razorbacks and a few Marines.

This may be true, but the Wave Serpent's battlefield role is different than a razorback. It has a greater payload, and it will more reliably deliver its cargo where it needs to be. It is really a support tank. Filling the same role as a Riflemen dreadnought (for example), except for a few more points, it has better weapons, better cover save, and more mobility... and a transport capacity. A riflemen will set you back about 125 points, and a waveserpent somewhere in the area of 145 (holofields, SC, SL). I would take that 20 point upgrade any day. Let's also not forget it takes up no slots, and I don't need to talk about how the serpent shield is incredible.

For a transport.... yes, it is expensive... but for a heavy weapon support tank with a large transport capacity... this thing is money. I mean it's so good at it's role, that the Falcon tank has lost it's way.

My point is you cannot directly compare the two. At least not in my opinion.

 sudojoe wrote:

It's more survivable a... than a Land Raider .

That's objectively false.

 Marsyas wrote:
Wave Serpents can be annoying, yes. 4+ cover just for having moved means that in addition to the fact that you'll probably never get penetrating hits against it, it will also ignore half of your hits outright.

In my experience, it's best to treat them like a monstrous creature when assigning target priority: unless you are willing and able to devote all of the firepower necessary to bring one down, consider what other targets there are on the board that might be a better place to put your firepower., and when you choose to bring one down, do not stop until it is brought down. In most cases, the difference in potential lethality to your army between a wave serpent with full health and a wave serpent with one hull point remaining is precisely nothing.

Also, pay attention to what guns it fires. If the wave serpent fires its d6+1 serpent shield discharge, it loses its ability to ignore penetrating hits until the Eldar player's next turn, and you've got an opening in which you may be able to kill it more easily, and it is now possible to cripple it even if you don't kill it.

That's horrible comparison. Your comparing FW which isn't even widely accepted in mainstream play or tournaments to an Eldar list in the new Codex anyone can take legally. Furthermore that armored company list you mention fails hard to fliers, can't score, can't transport troops, and have fairly limited movement range. And all raider variants can be glanced to death with ease. Mass serpent spam is now worse than flier spam due to more survivability and firepower and the ability to transport troops almost anywhere on the board by turn 2, while maintaining a threat turn 1.

 Gangrel767 wrote:

 sudojoe wrote:

It's more survivable a... than a Land Raider .

That's objectively false.

I suppose we'd have to see some numbers to back up any claims, but the wave serpent is better off against the random one shot kill you can see on most vehicles, including the land raider.

Also consider that you can have more hull points in Wave Serpents as the Land Raider for the same cost. 230 points for two Serpents. :-P Obviously addons will swing the Serpents to the more expensive side...but...still. That's two units to shoot at, both delivering troops, and VERY resilient.

Pretty sure most of FW is also legal in 40k, regardless of whether or not people like it (and the rest is legal in Apocalypse).

Yes, the Wave Serpent is a great buy as a dual-purpose transport/support tank. It may well even be undercosted for what it does. But that's not at issue here. My point stands: if you want to defeat an Eldar mechanized list, then you need to bring more anti-tank (or at least more anti-AV 12) firepower to the battlefield than you're used to bringing.

Most of you probably weren't around in 4th. This is just a verbatim repeat of the last codex release. Wildly overpowered WSs that can't be killed, deploying bucket loads of fire dragons. Only after an edition change or a bunch of FAQs will the SWs come back down from the forge world heights of OP cheese.

 RedAngel wrote:
Most of you probably weren't around in 4th. This is just a verbatim repeat of the last codex release. Wildly overpowered WSs that can't be killed, deploying bucket loads of fire dragons. Only after an edition change or a bunch of FAQs will the SWs come back down from the forge world heights of OP cheese.

These WS are not nearly as powerful as Tri-Falcon Holo's were in 4th.

 Sasori wrote:

 RedAngel wrote:
Most of you probably weren't around in 4th. This is just a verbatim repeat of the last codex release. Wildly overpowered WSs that can't be killed, deploying bucket loads of fire dragons. Only after an edition change or a bunch of FAQs will the SWs come back down from the forge world heights of OP cheese.

These WS are not nearly as powerful as Tri-Falcon Holo's were in 4th.

what is?

 Exergy wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

 RedAngel wrote:
Most of you probably weren't around in 4th. This is just a verbatim repeat of the last codex release. Wildly overpowered WSs that can't be killed, deploying bucket loads of fire dragons. Only after an edition change or a bunch of FAQs will the SWs come back down from the forge world heights of OP cheese.

These WS are not nearly as powerful as Tri-Falcon Holo's were in 4th.

what is?

Nothing, which is why it's absolutely ludicrous when anyone compares them to 4th.

Wave Serpents are very survivable now, and very good, but they are certainly not unkillable.

 Marsyas wrote:
Pretty sure most of FW is also legal in 40k, regardless of whether or not people like it (and the rest is legal in Apocalypse).

Yes, the Wave Serpent is a great buy as a dual-purpose transport/support tank. It may well even be undercosted for what it does. But that's not at issue here. My point stands: if you want to defeat an Eldar mechanized list, then you need to bring more anti-tank (or at least more anti-AV 12) firepower to the battlefield than you're used to bringing.

Have not seen the threads that pop up every other day about FW, also please point to me any major Tournament in the last year that allowed forge world besides War Games Con. My point still stands, normal anti-tactics don't work. The ability to spam good firepower on a permanent 4+ coversave av12 platform WITH jink in mass numbers is not balanced. Its not about anti-tank tactics, Wave Serpents are entirely in their own class.

 Spartan089 wrote:

 Marsyas wrote:
Pretty sure most of FW is also legal in 40k, regardless of whether or not people like it (and the rest is legal in Apocalypse).

Yes, the Wave Serpent is a great buy as a dual-purpose transport/support tank. It may well even be undercosted for what it does. But that's not at issue here. My point stands: if you want to defeat an Eldar mechanized list, then you need to bring more anti-tank (or at least more anti-AV 12) firepower to the battlefield than you're used to bringing.

Have not seen the threads that pop up every other day about FW, also please point to me any major Tournament in the last year that allowed forge world besides War Games Con. My point still stands, normal anti-tactics don't work. The ability to spam good firepower on a permanent 4+ coversave av13 platform WITH jink in mass numbers is not balanced. Its not about anti-tank tactics, Wave Serpents are entirely in their own class.

The BAO, allowed FW.

WS are my biggest overall concern from Eldar right now.
3x squads of AC Havocs average less than 1 kill per turn. That's pretty dang tough for AV12.

 Spartan089 wrote:

Have not seen the threads that pop up every other day about FW, also please point to me any major Tournament in the last year that allowed forge world besides War Games Con. My point still stands, normal anti-tactics don't work. The ability to spam good firepower on a permanent 4+ coversave av13 platform WITH jink in mass numbers is not balanced. Its not about anti-tank tactics, Wave Serpents are entirely in their own class.

I assume you mean AV12. And while I'm not sure if it's a major tournament or not, the Kublacon Golden Gargant allowed Forgeworld.

Ally in Dark Reapers with star shot missiles.

The earlier advice of waiting for the eldar player to use the shield as a weapon and then pouring enough fire power on it to put it down was good. The best you can hope for without cover (or at least jink) ignoring weaponry.

The good news is that it is very tempting to use the shield as a weapon every turn. 60" range, str 7, ignores cover, pining, 2-7 shots. I've played 3 games with the new codex and have run my serpent with holo fields. I used the shield as a gun almost every turn of all three games and the serpent was still around at the end of each game. I expect my friends to devote more attention to them in the future so they may not make it to the end, but it will be worth it.

I think that a lot of people are confusing "cannot kill with my standard army build" with "overpowered". Just because something is new and different does not mean that it is unstoppable.

New army means that the overall environment has just changed. Eldar with Serpents means that you have to now take "mech" style lists into account again. Deal with it.

They are definitely a meta changer. S7+ mulishot weapons should have always been necessary for AV12 and lower but due to the fragility of the tanks with sub AV12 and how overall bad the armies that depend on them as their only tanks have been (DE and CWE) people have stopped including those weapons in TAC lists. Now that there is a good AV12 tank people are freaking out as they have to adapt.

To the OP get behind the tank or ignore it until it fires it's shield. Bubble wrap and cover are vital to force a faster opponent to expose vulnerabilities.
I personally find SM vanilla to be lacking unless they go crazy with TL drop pod sternguard and 3x TFCs. If they do then drop in behind the WS and you should kill 3.TFC the contents and any thing outside the WS as the TFC is great against many of the cheaper eldar troops.
IG plasma spam is actually not bad against this. Vendetta spam also does pretty good but you better get them on turn 2.
If someone brings 4+ WS that is eldar version of a highly competitive list and you need to recognize that and bring a corresponding list.

Btw are there even any vanilla SM lists that are tournament level? I know with Tau allies they can be but what about pure SM?

Three Hadesfiends should be able to kill one per turn not counting daemonforge and assuming a 4+ cover save.

Three WS will kill a Forgefiend in one turn if they use the shield.

Three Drakes will kill a WS in one turn with vector strikes.

I played against an opponent who fielded two of the wave serpents with all of the cheese, and a FoR just to really pile it on. But I had one Ravenwing Black Knight ride up to him and and blow him up. All he had was a corvious hammer that gives him+1 str. In CC they go down pretty easy (AV10 Rear I believe). You could try a squad of bikes with a power fist ( power axe could work too).. And attack bike with a MM and two meltaguns would work two if you could get behind them. Deepstriking landspeeders behind them would caus some glances on them (maybe even a pen with a crappy roll) but that would usually be suicide for them. They are a tough nut to crack.

I am a Tau player. I use the following unit:

Commander - Puretide chip, Multi spectrum, Iridium armor
3 Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, 6 Drones.

I've played Mechdar 3 times and each time that unit has taken out 5+ vehicles. On average that unit will remove about 3 AV12 vehicles a turn. It is also incredibly durable and difficult for Eldar players to remove.

For non-Tau players.... good luck..

A guy from my club just came up with what appears to be a good idea. Use th Telepathy power Puppet Master to take control of a WS. Shoot the shield off at the eldar. Then its robed of its shield, & possesed of less defenses.

I'm not sure that works. The Shield can only be deactivated in the Serpent's shooting phase. If the other guy's Shooting phase counts as "its Shooting phase", then in normal use the Shield likewise regenerates before the enemy's shooting phase since the enemy's turn counts as "its following turn". Plus Puppet Master doesn't give permission to use vehicle wargear, which you have to do to do the "deactivation". You can't choose to have the Serpent move Flat Out or anything else either; you just get to shoot its weapons.

 LValx wrote:
I am a Tau player. I use the following unit:

Commander - Puretide chip, Multi spectrum, Iridium armor
3 Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, 6 Drones.

I've played Mechdar 3 times and each time that unit has taken out 5+ vehicles. On average that unit will remove about 3 AV12 vehicles a turn. It is also incredibly durable and difficult for Eldar players to remove.

For non-Tau players.... good luck..

Nasty unit for sure.

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but how is it removing 3 vehicles a turn from that one unit? Also, do you really benefit from the Puretide chip that much?

I assume that two of the Broadsides have target locks. Maybe all three. The Puretide chip lets you give everything in the unit Tank Hunters, so you do benefit quite a bit from it.

*Sigh* More reason to take Hunters, I guess.

pantsonhead wrote:
I assume that two of the Broadsides have target locks. Maybe all three. The Puretide chip lets you give everything in the unit Tank Hunters, so you do benefit quite a bit from it.

Puretide chip is only the model, not for the unit.

But Tank Hunters is one of those "a unit that contains at least one model" rules.

pantsonhead wrote:
But Tank Hunters is one of those "a unit that contains at least one model" rules.

Ahh, that makes sense then.

Wow, pretty devastating unit then.

pantsonhead wrote:
I assume that two of the Broadsides have target locks. Maybe all three. The Puretide chip lets you give everything in the unit Tank Hunters, so you do benefit quite a bit from it.

*Sigh* More reason to take Hunters, I guess.

All 3. So 4 Targets possible. I usually prescience the squad so the Drones will usually get 6-7 hits, then ~9 for the Broadsides.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The broadsides also move and fire better than folks think. With an ethereal around they can snapfire after running if need be. Markers can boost snap shots if they move.. etc. It is very harsh on vehicles. Removing their save completely is gross.

I think a solid counter to waveserpents is... MORE WAVESERPENTS!

Seriously, S7 ignores cover? no jink saves for you, and I will glance them down.

 Exergy wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

These WS are not nearly as powerful as Tri-Falcon Holo's were in 4th.

what is?

Helldrakes.

Belly wrote:
I think a solid counter to waveserpents is... MORE WAVESERPENTS!

Seriously, S7 ignores cover? no jink saves for you, and I will glance them down.

Yeah, Eldar-on-Eldar fights are going to be BRUTAL.

 LValx wrote:

Commander - Puretide chip, Multi spectrum, Iridium armor
3 Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, 6 Drones.

On average that unit will remove about 3 AV12 vehicles a turn. It is also incredibly durable and difficult for Eldar players to remove.

Even if they all shoot different targets (which you're not mentioning in their gear), they do not average killing three AV12 vehicles a turn. Not even close.

I'm not bashing missile sides, but be realistic.

Markerlights let Tau counter them pretty nicely.
Stupid markerlights.

Tomb Kings have those annoying spider things that spawn those even more annoying little spider things.. And glance to death with standard gauss weapons.

Other Eldar laugh as their Dark Reapers with upgraded rockets mulch anything with a jink save.

Guard have some of the most stupidly overpoweredHEROIC AND INVINCIBLE AS BEFITS THE HAMMER OF THE EMPEROR options for dealing with Eldar (wave serpent or otherwise) at range in the game, many of which are barrage and therefore laugh at cover saves.

You know barrage does not ignore cover. IG is actually an army waveserpent spam should be pretty good against.

eje005 wrote:
Apart from rifleman dreadnought spam, there's no high shots str 7+ in the book. And if I'm taking those auto cannons my list is going to be ineffective against anything but Eldar and Ork Trukks.

Ok, let's see...


Troops:

Tac squad with plasma, combi-plasma, multi-melta.
That's 4 str7 shots and 1 str 8 shot for first shooting, and then 2 str7 shots and 1 str8 shot after that. Plus you can get them an assault cannon razorback, that has str6 rending shots.

Elite:

You already mentioned rifleman dreadnought so there is that, and also sternguard, with 2 plasma and the rest can take combi-plasma. That's plenty of str7 shots.

Fast attack:

You said that you take deep striking Land speeders. IMO better option would be to take 3 Attack bikes with multi-meltas. That's 3 str8 shots per unit of bikes. Also you could be taking Storm Talons, probably the best choise here!

Heavy support:

HS has devastators, but they are kinda overpriced in vanilla codex. Instead you could take Predators with lascannons for 2 str7 shots and 2 str9 shots. Also you could be taking more rifleman dreads here with MotF.



There are plenty of high shots str7+ shooting in the book.

 Sasori wrote:

 RedAngel wrote:
Most of you probably weren't around in 4th. This is just a verbatim repeat of the last codex release. Wildly overpowered WSs that can't be killed, deploying bucket loads of fire dragons. Only after an edition change or a bunch of FAQs will the SWs come back down from the forge world heights of OP cheese.

These WS are not nearly as powerful as Tri-Falcon Holo's were in 4th.

Indeed, Falcons were almost indestructible at that time. The new Serpents come not even close.
Nevertheless, the new Serpents are hard to deal with for most armies out there.

I don't get it. Killing a wave serpent from the front is virtually identical to killing a W3 T8 monstrous creature with a 4++.

Certainly if you can handle riptides, you can handle wave serpents.

 ansacs wrote:
You know barrage does not ignore cover. IG is actually an army waveserpent spam should be pretty good against.

not all cover, it depends on where the blast lands right? which means it would work on a vehicle with shroud/stealth/jink ect. Unless I missed that rule change.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 LValx wrote:

Commander - Puretide chip, Multi spectrum, Iridium armor
3 Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, 6 Drones.

On average that unit will remove about 3 AV12 vehicles a turn. It is also incredibly durable and difficult for Eldar players to remove.

Even if they all shoot different targets (which you're not mentioning in their gear), they do not average killing three AV12 vehicles a turn. Not even close.

I'm not bashing missile sides, but be realistic.

Read my next post. I take target locks. So 12 shots tl bs 3 yields 9 str. 7 hits. 12 shots tl bs2 yields 6-8. Lets Say 15 str.7 hits. Thats 5 results, 10 rerolls. Those 10 yield 3 more. Thats 8 pen/glance vs av12 that ignore cover. It can deviate, but so far it usually kills at least 2 and ive gotten 3 more than half the time.

 LValx wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 LValx wrote:

Commander - Puretide chip, Multi spectrum, Iridium armor
3 Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, 6 Drones.

On average that unit will remove about 3 AV12 vehicles a turn. It is also incredibly durable and difficult for Eldar players to remove.

Even if they all shoot different targets (which you're not mentioning in their gear), they do not average killing three AV12 vehicles a turn. Not even close.

I'm not bashing missile sides, but be realistic.

Read my next post. I take target locks. So 12 shots tl bs 3 yields 9 str. 7 hits. 12 shots tl bs2 yields 6-8. Lets Say 15 str.7 hits. Thats 5 results, 10 rerolls. Those 10 yield 3 more. Thats 8 pen/glance vs av12 that ignore cover. It can deviate, but so far it usually kills at least 2 and ive gotten 3 more than half the time.

How are you allocating what to fire? Are you firing on 4 targets or 3?

All drones have to fire on one target, so what do Broadsides fire on? One fires the same target as drones and the other fire different targets, or what?

You have to decide what each member fires before firing, so how are you averaging 3 destroyed AV12 vehicles?

I'm kind of surprised how much response this thread has gotten since I guess I'm not the only one facing this already.

Interesting that pretty much everyone agrees that old SM builds of high power weapons is dead in the waters basically. I guess I'm not imagining it after all.

 Marsyas wrote:
Markerlights let Tau counter them pretty nicely.
Stupid markerlights.

Tomb Kings have those annoying spider things that spawn those even more annoying little spider things.. And glance to death with standard gauss weapons.

Other Eldar laugh as their Dark Reapers with upgraded rockets mulch anything with a jink save.

Guard have some of the most stupidly overpoweredHEROIC AND INVINCIBLE AS BEFITS THE HAMMER OF THE EMPEROR options for dealing with Eldar (wave serpent or otherwise) at range in the game, many of which are barrage and therefore laugh at cover saves.

You obviously do not know what are you talking about...

I'm sure helldrakes will find those serpents entertaining, Vectorstrikes glance on a 6 then flame in the back and glance again on a 5.

Necrons will have enough shots to not care about the coversaves, neither will my 3 units of wraiths when that serpent comes to close...

 Valek wrote:
I'm sure helldrakes will find those serpents entertaining, Vectorstrikes glance on a 6 then flame in the back and glance again on a 5.

Necrons will have enough shots to not care about the coversaves, neither will my 3 units of wraiths when that serpent comes to close...

Well, isn't vector strike S7 ?
Necron Wraiths are difficult to remove by Eldar expecially when you field 15 or so.

 minigun762 wrote:
Three Hadesfiends should be able to kill one per turn not counting daemonforge and assuming a 4+ cover save.

Three WS will kill a Forgefiend in one turn if they use the shield.

Three Drakes will kill a WS in one turn with vector strikes.

dont forget daemon forge. Helps the FF with burst damage


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Valek wrote:
I'm sure helldrakes will find those serpents entertaining, Vectorstrikes glance on a 6 then flame in the back and glance again on a 5.

Necrons will have enough shots to not care about the coversaves, neither will my 3 units of wraiths when that serpent comes to close...

Heldrakes will glance on a 5, pen on a 6 with their VS
If they hit rear armor with the flamer, glance on a 4, pen on 5, 6.
If the flamer hits side armor, glance on a 6.

6th edition made CC a hard counter to tanks. To handle wave serpents you need to charge them or shoot then in the rear armour.

A wave serpent rush to get your Fire Fragons and D-scythe Wraith into range for next turn is still difficult to pull off correctly, as you have to be careful of enemy assault ranges.
Spamming WSs with min size DA squads to stay at range is when they can seem unreasonable, but who would be so dull!

 Valek wrote:
I'm sure helldrakes will find those serpents entertaining, Vectorstrikes glance on a 6 then flame in the back and glance again on a 5.

Necrons will have enough shots to not care about the coversaves, neither will my 3 units of wraiths when that serpent comes to close...

Serpent spam is more likely to find helldrakes entertaining, you didnt think that through.

15 rapid firing necrons will do about 1.5HP to a wave serpent. Anni Barges would be helpful though. Wriaths, like any decent CC unit, will work.

I would suggest hive guard, but Wave Serpents can butcher hive guard frighteningly easily due to their large number of AP4 or better high strength shots and superior range.

 Kain wrote:
I would suggest hive guard, but Wave Serpents can butcher hive guard frighteningly easily due to their large number of AP4 or better high strength shots and superior range.

No, Hive Guard is the best bet. I faced (6 to 8) Hive Guard rather often in the 5th ed with my mech Eldar and Nids always had a hard time.

 Kain wrote:
I would suggest hive guard, but Wave Serpents can butcher hive guard frighteningly easily due to their large number of AP4 or better high strength shots and superior range.

If Serpents are throwing lots of AP4 around you someone is cheating. At most they can put out 2 AP2 shots from Starcannons (or one AP2 from Bright Lances or AP3 from missiles). By far the most common loadout is a Scatter Laser with a Shuriken Cannon, so you're talking 4 AP6, 3 AP5 shots, plus d6+1 AP- shots.

Sure they're all S6+, but unless you're dealing with orks, guardsmen, or gaunts, everything pretty much gets a standard armor save against it.

Just because no one has pointed it out yet- Footdar absolutely wrecks Mechdar head to head.

Wraithknights can catch (or at least corral) them.

Reapers can swat down Prisms with ease and Serpents without too much effort.

Minimum Warp Spider squads (and what foot player isn't taking at least two units of those?) can DS in for 10 S7 shots on rear armor.

Jetbikes are fast enough to boost behind them turn one, forcing the serpents to either turn around (suicide), target the bikes with turret guns only (inefficient), or accept S6 shots to the rear (risky).



A good Footdar list can put credible S6+ shooting threats on all four board edges by the end of turn two. Once the Serpents have no "safe" facing for their rear armor, they start dropping like flies.

With a combination of DS and Outflank other armies may be able to replicate this technique effectively.

For 'Nilla Marines, perhaps a CML Tac Termie squad could anchor the opposing board edge. Drop into the rear arc of a Fire Dragon Serpent to get them out early, then shred the dragons with other shooting. A MM Attack Bike or Bike Squad could boost up each board edge to anchor the corners, preferably behind any terrain that happens to be available. To hold the short edges, just run up a Rhino or a Razorback with an appropriately armed (Plas/MM or Plas/ML) Tac Squad inside. Anchor your own edge with a selection of firepower units, perhaps a few AC/LC Preds, and see what happens. That selection of units should also function as a relatively decent TAC list, and doesn't have any horrible unit selections in it.

Worth trying, I'd think.

 Magc8Ball wrote:

 Kain wrote:
I would suggest hive guard, but Wave Serpents can butcher hive guard frighteningly easily due to their large number of AP4 or better high strength shots and superior range.

If Serpents are throwing lots of AP4 around you someone is cheating. At most they can put out 2 AP2 shots from Starcannons (or one AP2 from Bright Lances or AP3 from missiles). By far the most common loadout is a Scatter Laser with a Shuriken Cannon, so you're talking 4 AP6, 3 AP5 shots, plus d6+1 AP- shots.

Sure they're all S6+, but unless you're dealing with orks, guardsmen, or gaunts, everything pretty much gets a standard armor save against it.

I should learn to ask people to show their codices some day. At this rate somebody's going to try and tell me a Fortress of Redemption doesn't cost points.

 chorde wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
You know barrage does not ignore cover. IG is actually an army waveserpent spam should be pretty good against.

not all cover, it depends on where the blast lands right? which means it would work on a vehicle with shroud/stealth/jink ect. Unless I missed that rule change.

It has no effect on jink. None on WS in fact as side AV 12.

 chorde wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
You know barrage does not ignore cover. IG is actually an army waveserpent spam should be pretty good against.

not all cover, it depends on where the blast lands right?

It does not matter where the blast lands, it always hits the side.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 chorde wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
You know barrage does not ignore cover. IG is actually an army waveserpent spam should be pretty good against.

not all cover, it depends on where the blast lands right?

It does not matter where the blast lands, it always hits the side.

I had a guy claim that barrage weapons ignored all cover except for area terrain.

 ansacs wrote:
You know barrage does not ignore cover. IG is actually an army waveserpent spam should be pretty good against.

IG players should consider getting their 5th edition Hydras back out of storage. 75 pts for 4 twin-linked AC shots (using normal BS) that ignores jink saves is still a bargain.

Only if they only play necron flyer and eldar skimmer armies.

 ansacs wrote:
Only if they only play necron flyer and eldar skimmer armies.

Given that people seem to include the ADL & a quad gun just in case they run into Flyers, a Hydra doesn't seem like a horrible investment.

And it's nice against FMCs, too.

And against Drakes.

It's actually a good counter to many of the new "meta changers ".

It snap fires against anything not a flyer or skimmer. This makes it much worse than a quadgun at nearly the same price as the gun + adl which gives you lots of 4+ cover. The quadgun also has interceptor which is very helpful when the enemy flyers tend to have weapons good at killing your aa gun.

Finally no S7 gun is good against the hellturkey. It is much better to nuke the rear with guided dragons or wraithguard than to chip away at it and let it regain hull points every turn. If you use hydras you will normally need to reserve them and you will need 3 to kill a drake in 1 turn. IG are better served by FW or massed vendetta las. At least with a vendetta you are mostly safe from retaliation. Alternatively you can count on fire on my target orders and you may have to add some autocannons now. Though there is much to be said for lascannons which will make the eldar player hesitate to use the discharge mode of the shield as the WS becomes much easier to kill without it.

I just had another idea, what if you got puppet master and forced the wave serpent to shoot the shield. Can you then shoot the wave serpent since it is now not shielded?

Well several people have suggested puppet master. Only problem is, you can't rely on even getting it.

Played Eldar v Eldar recently, it is brutal. My own serpents dropped 3 opposing serpents turn one. How can you recover from that?

 sudojoe wrote:
I just had another idea, what if you got puppet master and forced the wave serpent to shoot the shield. Can you then shoot the wave serpent since it is now not shielded?

You mean a model can shoot itself? The shield can be used a tank weapon.

I'm...pretty sure it can't shoot itself. I stand with wuestenfux in doubting this one.

 Lothar wrote:


You obviously do not know what are you talking about...

Yeah, that wasn't one of my better efforts. I got lazy.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 sudojoe wrote:
I just had another idea, what if you got puppet master and forced the wave serpent to shoot the shield. Can you then shoot the wave serpent since it is now not shielded?

You mean a model can shoot itself? The shield can be used a tank weapon.

He said then. As in "Fire the shield at the bloke next to the wave serpent, and then light up the serpent with every S8-S9 weapon you have available."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LValx wrote:
I am a Tau player. I use the following unit:

Commander - Puretide chip, Multi spectrum, Iridium armor
3 Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, 6 Drones.

I've played Mechdar 3 times and each time that unit has taken out 5+ vehicles. On average that unit will remove about 3 AV12 vehicles a turn. It is also incredibly durable and difficult for Eldar players to remove.

For non-Tau players.... good luck..

Oh god, this unit. I've faced that unit twice so far on vassal. So much pain

He said then. As in "Fire the shield at the bloke next to the wave serpent, and then light up the serpent with every S8-S9 weapon you have available."

I don't think puppetmaster works with the shield, as the shield is not a weapon, it's a piece of vehicle equipment.

So, for it to work I believe that the User would have had to used the shield already as a shooting attack.

 Sasori wrote:

He said then. As in "Fire the shield at the bloke next to the wave serpent, and then light up the serpent with every S8-S9 weapon you have available."

I don't think puppetmaster works with the shield, as the shield is not a weapon, it's a piece of vehicle equipment.

So, for it to work I believe that the User would have had to used the shield already as a shooting attack.

It says make a shooting attack. The wargear can be used as a shooting attack as "if it were one of your models."

I do agree though that this may need to FAQ'd. It's one of those grey areas again. Is there a precedence?

Any thoughts on The DE's ability to combat wave serpent armadas?

Flicker fields and lances might be your best bet.

If you can get wyches with haywires that might mess it up as well.

 Bwolf999 wrote:
Any thoughts on The DE's ability to combat wave serpent armadas?

You will struggle mightily, as their weapons are far more efficient at destroying your vehicles and troops, than your weapons are at destroying their serpents. If they are smart with their shields they should blow you right off the table. Serpent-spam is a very tough thing to deal with and I think very few armies are equipped to deal with them.

 LValx wrote:

 Bwolf999 wrote:
Any thoughts on The DE's ability to combat wave serpent armadas?

You will struggle mightily, as their weapons are far more efficient at destroying your vehicles and troops, than your weapons are at destroying their serpents. If they are smart with their shields they should blow you right off the table. Serpent-spam is a very tough thing to deal with and I think very few armies are equipped to deal with them.

I guess Kelly broke the game again then

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 LValx wrote:

 Bwolf999 wrote:
Any thoughts on The DE's ability to combat wave serpent armadas?

You will struggle mightily, as their weapons are far more efficient at destroying your vehicles and troops, than your weapons are at destroying their serpents. If they are smart with their shields they should blow you right off the table. Serpent-spam is a very tough thing to deal with and I think very few armies are equipped to deal with them.

I guess Kelly broke the game again then

Not broke, but definitely didn't help the game. Serpents are going to shake up the meta because they are very difficult to destroy. High Strength low AP weapons will struggle because the majority of Pens will just become glances. I'm thinking that DE, Nids, Marines, Orks and IG will all have a difficult time dealing with them.

Alternatively it does work but due to this interpretation the shield regenerates during both players phases. The rule says it may only be fired in the turn that it referenced recharging. So pick this option and suffer.

The ridiculous thing is when the cousins battle is the fact that it would take ALL of my army in one turn of firing, to fully destroy a single wave serpent. While in one turn of shooting, I could conceivably be tabled or damn near close to it.

Dafuq Kelly?

This is what happens when you spend all your time doing drugs and whoring while your cousin trains relentlessly in the art of war. Ya get whooped.

 ansacs wrote:
This is what happens when you spend all your time doing drugs and whoring while your cousin trains relentlessly in the art of war. Ya get whooped.

You just made me laugh, one of the first times i've done so reading Dakka. Congrats!

And DE. Poor DE. One of the higher ceilings in 40k, but by far the lowest floor. Its unfortunate as the models are beautiful and they've got flavor.

They are some of the best models I'll give you that. They still work very well as eldar allies. Grisly trophies let you reroll psychic tests! Turns out CWE are really just closet perverts.

 LValx wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 LValx wrote:

 Bwolf999 wrote:
Any thoughts on The DE's ability to combat wave serpent armadas?

You will struggle mightily, as their weapons are far more efficient at destroying your vehicles and troops, than your weapons are at destroying their serpents. If they are smart with their shields they should blow you right off the table. Serpent-spam is a very tough thing to deal with and I think very few armies are equipped to deal with them.

I guess Kelly broke the game again then

Not broke, but definitely didn't help the game. Serpents are going to shake up the meta because they are very difficult to destroy. High Strength low AP weapons will struggle because the majority of Pens will just become glances. I'm thinking that DE, Nids, Marines, Orks and IG will all have a difficult time dealing with them.

The durability isn't any better than 12 t7 wounds behind an aegis for 90 points+Aegis.

The meta will adapt. Fast cc and deep striking/fast units doing a rear shot ignore the shields. Necrons have plenty of solutions wraiths, scarabs, storm teks, dlords with a scythe.

I dont think all the armies can adapt. I believe the introduction of Serpents is just going to further drive 40k towards a RPS-style of game. It's almost impossible to create a list that can handle 10-12 AV12 hulls, Flyers, massive Hordes and speedy, durable assault lists (cav Daemons with Grimoire, FMCs with powers, Nids, Wraiths, BW Orks).

Why do you need to handle 10-12 AV 12 vehicles? What point level are you playing at?

Sorry if it's been said before, but I haven't really read the first 3 pages. You need volume of high-strength firepower to deal with serpent-spam. Several armies can do this well - necrons with teslas, grey knights with psycannon-spam and psyflemans, Tzeentch Herald-spam, Tau with missile-sides/riptides, space wolf missile-spam and another mechdar army and the seer council w/Fortune. Other armies will struggle.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

He said then. As in "Fire the shield at the bloke next to the wave serpent, and then light up the serpent with every S8-S9 weapon you have available."

I don't think puppetmaster works with the shield, as the shield is not a weapon, it's a piece of vehicle equipment.

So, for it to work I believe that the User would have had to used the shield already as a shooting attack.

It says make a shooting attack. The wargear can be used as a shooting attack as "if it were one of your models."

I do agree though that this may need to FAQ'd. It's one of those grey areas again. Is there a precedence?

Perhaps MSS (Mindshackle Scarabs) and force weapons. It's been FAQ'd that MSS lets the bearer force his target to activate Force Weapons. I see this as directly correlating to Puppetmaster letting you use the Energy Shield to fire its weapon.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Janthkin wrote:
Why do you need to handle 10-12 AV 12 vehicles? What point level are you playing at?

I believe at 2K, you can fit at most 8-9 skimmers of the AV12 variety.

Actually for 1875 pts you can field 11 AV12 skimmers of course this is with no upgrades and the minimum priced options for units/HQ/HS, so it stinks. However a pretty good list will probably be ~7-9 4++ skimmers at that level.

 LValx wrote:
I am a Tau player. I use the following unit:

Commander - Puretide chip, Multi spectrum, Iridium armor
3 Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, 6 Drones.

I've played Mechdar 3 times and each time that unit has taken out 5+ vehicles. On average that unit will remove about 3 AV12 vehicles a turn. It is also incredibly durable and difficult for Eldar players to remove.

For non-Tau players.... good luck..

^ THIS + THIS \/



= A good solution for NON-tyranids

 Janthkin wrote:
Why do you need to handle 10-12 AV 12 vehicles? What point level are you playing at?

just another case of someone whining on the forums about "op" units that probably hasn't actually even played a game of 6th. the most you can fit into 2000 points is 10 and those are bare bones.

phoenixrisin wrote:

 Janthkin wrote:
Why do you need to handle 10-12 AV 12 vehicles? What point level are you playing at?

just another case of someone whining on the forums about "op" units that probably hasn't actually even played a game of 6th. the most you can fit into 2000 points is 10 and those are bare bones.

How would you quantify this?
6-7 Serpents filled with min sized troops and Elite units,
3 HS tanks (Prisms, Spinners, Falcons).

It's not really even about killing 5+ WS in total, it's really how to deal with them in the time it takes them to get to where they want to go which most times will be turn 2 or 3 at the latest.

Also, their return fire is pretty nasty, and will nearly always be able to get the alpha strike with their occupants surviving to fire at your more sensitive areas (i.e. can probably even get behind the aegis lines for example.)

All of the fire needed to take these down in volume are often AP4 or (-) . which then makes it much harder to take down AP2 or 3 which is why I think a lot of folks are gonna go MC's. Takes forever to down a flying daemon prince of tzeentch w/ power armor with those same weapon systems.

So far I'm guessing that misslesides with tank hunter commanders will be the best option in terms of straight power fight. However I do worry about them when some fire dragons show up to melt them however but oh well. Really seeing the RPS thing definitely.

Wonder how SM will fare (though I doubt it'll be too meta shifting) while the orks update will make a huge meta change again I'm sure.

Is it true that serpent shield has 72" range? That's what an Eldar player told me. If so, how do you hide from that?

I play Orks.
My traditional method of opening up AV12 transports it the Loota.

2 squads of 10 Lootas each firing on the same Wave Serpent will strip of 2 HP on average. Obviously this isn't worth it.
So I think we should ignore them until we can hit it in CC. "Well duh" some of you are thinking. Yes.


If the wave serpent is coming towards me to drop its short ranges shooting troops, then the transport and contents are likely within my charge range next turn. If they are close (enough) to my back line Shoota squad (aka objective campers), the Shootas will Multi-charge against the unit and waveserpsent, with some care taken in the movement phase so my Nob with Power Klaw is closest for the secondary target (waveserpent) and let the boyz hit the infantry (primary target). Eldar, having nice saves, makes them idea targets to whittle down by shootas without worrying about the squad evaporating and prematurely ending the charge.
Changes:
This means I will have to give my back line shoota squad a Power Klaw and probably a trukk of their own so I can reposition them as need be.
.. maybe I can put my Lootas in their trukk first turn.


If the wave serpent is standing off and using its shooting attack, likely to target and slaughter my Lootas, those Lootas are screwed. If there are 3-4 WS, keeping my lootas out of LOS (and snap firing or not shooting a turn) might be a necessity.
Changes:
Kannon now become a stronger contender for dealing with AV12.
The bastion as protection (for my Lootas) rather then the Aegis 4/2+ cover now looks nicer and nicer.

The biker Warboss remains an option, but not worth it IMO. He might die from return fire next turn, and he likely has more important targets elsewhere.



I look forward to game against Eldar so I can test my thoughts out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Is it true that serpent shield has 72" range? That's what an Eldar player told me. If so, how do you hide from that?

60"
Ignores cover.

There is no partial hiding, you can hide by blocking LOS.

Gah, even 60" is bad. What was kelly thinking? 0_o

My biggest issue as an avid serpent user is nonscatter deepstrikes from the rear...its become so prevalent and game changing that I am heavily contemplating vectored engines just so I can shoot what I need and then hide the a** on that tank.

As I deal with any vehicle in the game...
Gauss
Heheh

 iGuy91 wrote:
As I deal with any vehicle in the game...
Gauss
Heheh

Sadly, their weapons greatly out range ours. That 60" range is absurd. Even the 3rd ed monolith didn't have something that ludicrous.

That said, anni barges may be a good counter. They do churn out a lot of S7 shots. I'm tempted to throw down a monolith as well, just to teleport the warriors a bit closer.

BtW, what's with all of the 1850 lists? The last 3 games I played on vassal were all 1850pts.

 ductvader wrote:
My biggest issue as an avid serpent user is nonscatter deepstrikes from the rear...its become so prevalent and game changing that I am heavily contemplating vectored engines just so I can shoot what I need and then hide the a** on that tank.

Just probably need it on every other WS as you can pretty much park them "rear to rear" so to speak. Anyone trying to shoot your rear would be at extreme angle thus a 3+ cover brought up to 2+ cover with the holofields....

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
As I deal with any vehicle in the game...
Gauss
Heheh

Sadly, their weapons greatly out range ours. That 60" range is absurd. Even the 3rd ed monolith didn't have something that ludicrous.

That said, anni barges may be a good counter. They do churn out a lot of S7 shots. I'm tempted to throw down a monolith as well, just to teleport the warriors a bit closer.

BtW, what's with all of the 1850 lists? The last 3 games I played on vassal were all 1850pts.

1850 are standard tournament sized games. Also, annihilation barges being a counter is sorta redundant given how amazingly under costed they are. That unit is the counter for pretty much everything and why high tier lists pretty much always use 3.

 sudojoe wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
My biggest issue as an avid serpent user is nonscatter deepstrikes from the rear...its become so prevalent and game changing that I am heavily contemplating vectored engines just so I can shoot what I need and then hide the a** on that tank.

Just probably need it on every other WS as you can pretty much park them "rear to rear" so to speak. Anyone trying to shoot your rear would be at extreme angle thus a 3+ cover brought up to 2+ cover with the holofields....

I was thinking just on my 2 Guardian squads.

THough I have contempated the Wraithguard squad so i can disembark them with the back end angled towards the enemy, shoot and turn back around...as a way to get a few extra inches of shooting range.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Gah, even 60" is bad. What was kelly thinking? 0_o

Honestly, that's not a big deal. It's only S6 too, I'd gladly take that shot to get a chance at penetrating that Wave Serpent.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Gah, even 60" is bad. What was kelly thinking? 0_o

Honestly, that's not a big deal. It's only S6 too, I'd gladly take that shot to get a chance at penetrating that Wave Serpent.

Most of the time you're taking 4 TL S6 shots and 4-5 TL S7 shots.

Unless he doesn't want to do that, then you can't shoot through the shield...or it isnt likely.

I personally run Shuriken cannons too because I keep shields up 67% of the time.

With my patented telecrons list, you can drop 2-3 wave serpents turn 1!


Its gimmicky, but a heck of a lot of fun to play!

While Gauss is well known to be mean to vehicles...it doesn't help the other 15 armies out there.

Massed S6 and 7 seems to be the way through a Serpent...and if you can ignore cover, all the better.

Outmaneuvering them isn't likely, but DS can throw them for a loop.

CC murderfaces them but is difficult to achieve.

Horde with hidden meltabombs and melta guns or various other AT options (Power claws, even massed S4) have been the bane of my mechdar.

At 2k you can fill out troops with 6 Serpents and grab 3 Prisms or a mix of Prisms and Spinners, I think you can fit in an HQ and still have enough for 1-2 more squads.

I'm not complaining, because my army can handle them. Unfortunately, most others cannot. It requires a TON of shots to down 1 WS that has its shield up and a 4+ save. If you cant remove their cover, good luck efficiently removing them.

CC is good, but really hard to do because of the speed. They can reposition very well, giving them the edge on a lot of lists.

Missile spam doesnt work vs Serpents.... 18 of them would average one wrecked Serpent. The Serpents outrange the missiles and can easily remove a good number of them before the missiles can even shoot.

Land Raiders would work if it weren't for cheap Bright Lances, Wraithguard, and Dragons.

 ductvader wrote:
Land Raiders would work if it weren't for cheap Bright Lances, Wraithguard, and Dragons.

And the fact that if you brought a raider, or raiders, their superior mobility would just allow them to not engage and dominate the board whilst picking off your weak support (assuming you brought any).

Serpents are just the new good for the time being. I expect orks or marines to bring them to balance soon enough.

Just like how Tau has reduced the amount of fliers and therefore reduced my need for AA.

 LValx wrote:
At 2k you can fill out troops with 6 Serpents and grab 3 Prisms or a mix of Prisms and Spinners, I think you can fit in an HQ and still have enough for 1-2 more squads.

I'm not complaining, because my army can handle them. Unfortunately, most others cannot. It requires a TON of shots to down 1 WS that has its shield up and a 4+ save. If you cant remove their cover, good luck efficiently removing them.

CC is good, but really hard to do because of the speed. They can reposition very well, giving them the edge on a lot of lists.

Missile spam doesnt work vs Serpents.... 18 of them would average one wrecked Serpent. The Serpents outrange the missiles and can easily remove a good number of them before the missiles can even shoot.

A pure shooty MSU SW army isn't just missiles. At 2K, you can run something like this (this was 1 of the lists that I used to run):


Rune Priest + Upgrade, Living Lightning - 110
Rune Priest - Living Lightning - 100

Rifleman Dread - 125
Rifleman Dread - 125

5x GH - Melta, Rhino - 115
5x GH - Melta, Rhino - 115
5x GH - Plasma, Las/plas Razorback - 160
5x GH - Plasma, Las/plas Razorback - 160
5x GH - Flamer, Lazorback - 150
5x GH - Flamer, Lazorback - 150

Land Speeder Typhoon - 90
Land Speeder Typhoon - 90
Land Speeder Typhoon - 90

6x Long Fangs - 5x Missiles - 140
6x Long Fangs - 5x Missiles - 140
6x Long Fangs - 5x Missiles - 140

2000


2D6 S7 shots, unlimited range
Up to 12 TL-S7 shots
4 S9 shots (2 x TL)
21 S8 shots


If you want, you can get Stormcaller to give nearby vehicles cover. There's enough guns here to give serpent-spam a good fight. As a matter of fact, whoever goes first will most likely win. With these types of lists, it's all about the alpha-strike.

A couple things of note: 1) once the serpents fire, they should be vulnerable to pens because they will most likely use their energy shields as a weapon and 2) even if they don't, you can always target the spinners/prisms/falcons and get pens on those.

 jy2 wrote:

 LValx wrote:
At 2k you can fill out troops with 6 Serpents and grab 3 Prisms or a mix of Prisms and Spinners, I think you can fit in an HQ and still have enough for 1-2 more squads.

I'm not complaining, because my army can handle them. Unfortunately, most others cannot. It requires a TON of shots to down 1 WS that has its shield up and a 4+ save. If you cant remove their cover, good luck efficiently removing them.

CC is good, but really hard to do because of the speed. They can reposition very well, giving them the edge on a lot of lists.

Missile spam doesnt work vs Serpents.... 18 of them would average one wrecked Serpent. The Serpents outrange the missiles and can easily remove a good number of them before the missiles can even shoot.

A pure shooty MSU SW army isn't just missiles. At 2K, you can run something like this (this was 1 of the lists that I used to run):


Rune Priest + Upgrade, Living Lightning - 110
Rune Priest - Living Lightning - 100

Rifleman Dread - 125
Rifleman Dread - 125

5x GH - Melta, Rhino - 115
5x GH - Melta, Rhino - 115
5x GH - Plasma, Las/plas Razorback - 160
5x GH - Plasma, Las/plas Razorback - 160
5x GH - Flamer, Lazorback - 150
5x GH - Flamer, Lazorback - 150

Land Speeder Typhoon - 90
Land Speeder Typhoon - 90
Land Speeder Typhoon - 90

6x Long Fangs - 5x Missiles - 140
6x Long Fangs - 5x Missiles - 140
6x Long Fangs - 5x Missiles - 140

2000


2D6 S7 shots, unlimited range
Up to 12 TL-S7 shots
4 S9 shots (2 x TL)
21 S8 shots


If you want, you can get Stormcaller to give nearby vehicles cover. There's enough guns here to give serpent-spam a good fight. As a matter of fact, whoever goes first will most likely win. With these types of lists, it's all about the alpha-strike.

A couple things of note: 1) once the serpents fire, they should be vulnerable to pens because they will most likely use their energy shields as a weapon and 2) even if they don't, you can always target the spinners/prisms/falcons and get pens on those.

Yeah, but the problem with that list is that it wont do well vs some of the other lists that are big, namely Heldrakes and Necron Flyers. There's a reason that you don't see MSU Razorbacks and Typhoons these days. Simply too fragile and the Razors are too punishing on the guys inside. Fangs (and regular Devs) just aren't as good as they once were.

I dont think any Marine contingent is well-equipped to deal with Serpents while still fielding a TAC list. I just don't see it and that SW list doesnt convince me.

I have never seen a Space Wolf list without drop pods before...and frankly I don't know that I ever wanted to.

 LValx wrote:
Yeah, but the problem with that list is that it wont do well vs some of the other lists that are big, namely Heldrakes and Necron Flyers. There's a reason that you don't see MSU Razorbacks and Typhoons these days. Simply too fragile and the Razors are too punishing on the guys inside. Fangs (and regular Devs) just aren't as good as they once were.

I dont think any Marine contingent is well-equipped to deal with Serpents while still fielding a TAC list. I just don't see it and that SW list doesnt convince me.

It's true that MSU has been hurt by the advent of necrons and in particular, necron flyer-spam and/or scarab farm. However, they are still a very strong build that can deal with many army builds in any non-VP missions.

But I agree with you that there is no magic bullet list that can deal with all the different list combos/threats that exist today. It is just impossible.

BTW, this type of list can definitely handle triple-heldrake lists. Those lists are good, but they are not the best. That is because the Chaos army on the whole is usually lacking in shooting or mobility.




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 ductvader wrote:
I have never seen a Space Wolf list without drop pods before...and frankly I don't know that I ever wanted to.

Then you haven't been playing enough 40k.

Ironically, IMO, it was the heldrakes that brought back the drop pod lists. For a period of time, 5th Ed. grey knights (i.e. Warp Quake-spam) relegated drop pod SW lists to mainly sitting on the shelves. But with the emergence of helturkeys, warp quake-lists are much rarer these days, which is why drop pod lists are making a comeback.

 jy2 wrote:

 LValx wrote:
Yeah, but the problem with that list is that it wont do well vs some of the other lists that are big, namely Heldrakes and Necron Flyers. There's a reason that you don't see MSU Razorbacks and Typhoons these days. Simply too fragile and the Razors are too punishing on the guys inside. Fangs (and regular Devs) just aren't as good as they once were.

I dont think any Marine contingent is well-equipped to deal with Serpents while still fielding a TAC list. I just don't see it and that SW list doesnt convince me.

It's true that MSU has been hurt by the advent of necrons and in particular, necron flyer-spam and/or scarab farm. However, they are still a very strong build that can deal with many army builds in any non-VP missions.

But I agree with you that there is no magic bullet list that can deal with all the different list combos/threats that exist today. It is just impossible.

BTW, this type of list can definitely handle triple-heldrake lists. Those lists are good, but they are not the best. That is because the Chaos army on the whole is usually lacking in shooting or mobility.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ductvader wrote:
I have never seen a Space Wolf list without drop pods before...and frankly I don't know that I ever wanted to.

Then you haven't been playing enough 40k.

Ironically, IMO, it was the heldrakes that brought back the drop pod lists. For a period of time, 5th Ed. grey knights (i.e. Warp Quake-spam) relegated drop pod SW lists to mainly sitting on the shelves. But with the emergence of helturkeys, warp quake-lists are much rarer these days, which is why drop pod lists are making a comeback.

I think a few armies can get very close to being TAC. But I dont think any Marine codex fits the bill.

Also, I think that SW list would have an incredibly difficult time with CSM/Necrons. You can field 2-3 Drakes, 2-3 Scythes, Barges and Oblits. Making it fairly easy to blow transports. Not to mention the turkey will most likely be able to alpha-strike the Fangs.

 ductvader wrote:
Serpents are just the new good for the time being. I expect orks or marines to bring them to balance soon enough.

Just like how Tau has reduced the amount of fliers and therefore reduced my need for AA.

How are orks or marines going to do this?

 davou wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Serpents are just the new good for the time being. I expect orks or marines to bring them to balance soon enough.

Just like how Tau has reduced the amount of fliers and therefore reduced my need for AA.

How are orks or marines going to do this?

Orks would do it with any update...a horde with powerclaws kills generic mechdar already...points reduction or increased durability of units would do it.

Marines, whether the superdreadnought or giant tank rumors are true its likely we'll be seeing massed s8 or more s7 ignores cover/jink weaponry.

 davou wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Serpents are just the new good for the time being. I expect orks or marines to bring them to balance soon enough.

Just like how Tau has reduced the amount of fliers and therefore reduced my need for AA.

How are orks or marines going to do this?

I don't know about marines, but for orks:

2 KFF Big Mek's
180 boyz
2 IG Blob squads


Sit on objectives. Have fun blasting them away.

 jy2 wrote:


2 KFF Big Mek's
180 boyz
2 IG Blob squads


Sit on objectives. Have fun blasting them away.

This kind of blob wont do well against eldar that can pimp the terrify.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ductvader wrote:

 davou wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Serpents are just the new good for the time being. I expect orks or marines to bring them to balance soon enough.

Just like how Tau has reduced the amount of fliers and therefore reduced my need for AA.

How are orks or marines going to do this?

Orks would do it with any update...a horde with powerclaws kills generic mechdar already...points reduction or increased durability of units would do it.

Marines, whether the superdreadnought or giant tank rumors are true its likely we'll be seeing massed s8 or more s7 ignores cover/jink weaponry.

ah, you meant after an update? I dont doubt that they will both have an answer in built. Probably a broken one for orks since its gonna be ward doing the dex

 davou wrote:

 jy2 wrote:


2 KFF Big Mek's
180 boyz
2 IG Blob squads


Sit on objectives. Have fun blasting them away.

This kind of blob wont do well against eldar that can pimp the terrify.

No biggie.

Ork mobs are stil LD10. And we are talking wave serpent-spam here, not the seer council.

IG blob should be LD 9/10 with commissar/Lord Commissar, stubborn and with re-roll for LD.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Gah, even 60" is bad. What was kelly thinking? 0_o

Honestly, that's not a big deal. It's only S6 too, I'd gladly take that shot to get a chance at penetrating that Wave Serpent.

S7.

 Titan Atlas wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Gah, even 60" is bad. What was kelly thinking? 0_o

Honestly, that's not a big deal. It's only S6 too, I'd gladly take that shot to get a chance at penetrating that Wave Serpent.

S7.

And ignores cover. Which is fine, because it's AP-...unless you are a vehicle or artillery, then not so fine.

By artillery, I mean the sentry pylon in particular.

It's efficient for rooting out a unit that is largely depending on cover, like say...a guard infantry squad of some sort in an ADL. Naturally though, I'm not sure that's the best example because if you drop your shields you can get pretty pwned provided the enemy has a gunline of some sort.


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And if you twin-link it with a Scatter laser (which you should really use, along with a Shuriken cannon as your other purchased weapon) it has a decent shot.

For some armies (like Da Orks) cover makes our armies viable. Otherwise, Lootas get massacred and Wagons/Boyz approaching get whittled at distance. The whole manoeuvre part of the game becomes nearly irrelevant when cover saves aren't viable.

As a follow on question to this discussion, what do you guys think will be the best things to toss into a wave serpent?

Cheapo Dire avenger squads to have more wave serpents

or

very killy fire dragons in wave serpents?

or the other generalist but ultra killy but expensive wraithguards with stuff like D.scythes and D. cannons? (but you will have far fewer wave serpents)

Guardians or Wraithguard in general seem to be playing the best.

Probably you need stuff to handle what the Wave Serpents can't. That, in turn, depends on your turret choices, at least to a degree.

And there is still the issue of having to get out of the transport in order to score. Unlike a Night Scythe, Troops in Wave Serpents can't move 42" on the last turn & still claim an objective. So at least some resilience might be useful.

I'm starting with relatively few Serpents, in favor of a couple squads of (Troop) Wraithguard.

 iGuy91 wrote:
With my patented telecrons list, you can drop 2-3 wave serpents turn 1!


Its gimmicky, but a heck of a lot of fun to play!

But the telecrons will hardly withstand the return fire.

 Titan Atlas wrote:
It's efficient for rooting out a unit that is largely depending on cover, like say...a guard infantry squad of some sort in an ADL. Naturally though, I'm not sure that's the best example because if you drop your shields you can get pretty pwned provided the enemy has a gunline of some sort.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And if you twin-link it with a Scatter laser (which you should really use, along with a Shuriken cannon as your other purchased weapon) it has a decent shot.

Yeah but still, that's not going to do much damage compared to the defensive bonus it provides.

Fairly confident we've been over that fact ad nauseum though

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Titan Atlas wrote:
It's efficient for rooting out a unit that is largely depending on cover, like say...a guard infantry squad of some sort in an ADL. Naturally though, I'm not sure that's the best example because if you drop your shields you can get pretty pwned provided the enemy has a gunline of some sort.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And if you twin-link it with a Scatter laser (which you should really use, along with a Shuriken cannon as your other purchased weapon) it has a decent shot.

Yeah but still, that's not going to do much damage compared to the defensive bonus it provides.

It's highly situational.

If I am facing bugs or GKs with their 24-30" threat range for shooting...heck yeah I am going to shoot and stay out of their range the whole time.

Oh its Tau and theyre going to glance me into oblivion anyways and deny my 4+ cover? SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT

IG wih lascannon spam, shield up!

SW Long fangs...SHIELD

The beauty is in the choosing


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Titan Atlas wrote:
ad nauseum

Great vernacular!

Dakka's a great place to be pretentious with one's latin haha

and yeah, agreed, if I'm staring down markerlights and have a shot at getting rid of some and thus reducing the chances of losing my cover, I'd consider taking it. It's pinning, if I remember correctly, so that'll help if nothing else.

Mhmm, it's definitely situational. Little/no chance of getting shot this turn? A bit of extra Dakka doesn't hurt.

I think Guardians are the best Serpent passengers. BUT I do think DA have a place if you are trying to maximize the amount of serpents. I mean, at 1850 you can actually fit 7 Serpents, 2 Prisms and a Spinner. Thats enough to make most opponents cry as soon as they see you set-up.

 sudojoe wrote:
With the changes to the shield as well as 4+ cover saves in the open along with being fast and AV12... not to mention twin linked goodness all around or ridiculously cheap lances (come on the upgrade guns are crazy cheap, I'd have to pay so much more for a razorback las cannon)

Markerlights. They'll erase cover save, and allow rail guns, heavy rail rifles, fusion guns, and even missile pods and ion weapons to have a fair chance at cracking it.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
As I deal with any vehicle in the game...
Gauss
Heheh

Sadly, their weapons greatly out range ours. That 60" range is absurd. Even the 3rd ed monolith didn't have something that ludicrous.

That said, anni barges may be a good counter. They do churn out a lot of S7 shots. I'm tempted to throw down a monolith as well, just to teleport the warriors a bit closer.

BtW, what's with all of the 1850 lists? The last 3 games I played on vassal were all 1850pts.

I suppose its just a good tournament point value.

As for Gauss, a unit of Destroyers is 10 gauss shots. Heavy Destroyers is S9 gauss. Glancing wave serpents to death is the best way to deal with them, I think. Each roll of 6 takes off a hull point. Combined with any Gauss Immortals and warriors and especially the stormtek haywire unit, that's a lot of dead vehicles.

Yeah I think Necrons with Scythes + a haywire cryptek in each unit of warriors will be a great way to deal with serpents compared to what most other codices have available. However, I still think it'd be an uphill battle. Serpents are absolutely brutal. I think the shield is just a bit too good. Maybe a 3+ to ignore would have been a bit more fair.

 McNinja wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

BtW, what's with all of the 1850 lists? The last 3 games I played on vassal were all 1850pts.

I suppose its just a good tournament point value.

Since when hasn't 1850 been the standard competitive point level?

 ductvader wrote:

 McNinja wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

BtW, what's with all of the 1850 lists? The last 3 games I played on vassal were all 1850pts.

I suppose its just a good tournament point value.

Since when hasn't 1850 been the standard competitive point level?

There have been a lot of 2,000 point tournaments lately in my area. I think it all matters in what part of the country you're in... or world I suppose.

Ah...here in the midwest, Adepticon is the biggest annual tournament and their championship clocks in at 1850.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Spartan089 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

eje005 wrote:

Also in response to the discussion about the Wave Serpent being a cheap vehicle. Consider this. The Wave Serpent has a 1/72 chance per hit of being destroyed by a lascannon. A Land Raider has a 1/9 chance per hit of being destroyed by a bright lance.

Unless you play Black Templars, in which case said Land Raider will have a 0% chance of being destroyed by the lance.

But then you still lose because your're playing Black Templars :p

What? Preposterous! The Black Knight always triumphs!

More on-topic, could Thunderfire Cannons do anything useful? They're pretty good now with the 6th ed artillery rules, so they wouldn't be worthless against other Codices, and they cause him to move as difficult terrain. Is the Subterranean Blast S6 though? I'm assuming the Ignores Cover one isn't.

My basic non-marked Night Lords, no turkey took down the Templars.

Spaz431 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Spartan089 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

eje005 wrote:

Also in response to the discussion about the Wave Serpent being a cheap vehicle. Consider this. The Wave Serpent has a 1/72 chance per hit of being destroyed by a lascannon. A Land Raider has a 1/9 chance per hit of being destroyed by a bright lance.

Unless you play Black Templars, in which case said Land Raider will have a 0% chance of being destroyed by the lance.

But then you still lose because your're playing Black Templars :p

What? Preposterous! The Black Knight always triumphs!

More on-topic, could Thunderfire Cannons do anything useful? They're pretty good now with the 6th ed artillery rules, so they wouldn't be worthless against other Codices, and they cause him to move as difficult terrain. Is the Subterranean Blast S6 though? I'm assuming the Ignores Cover one isn't.

My basic non-marked Night Lords, no turkey took down the Templars.

Good for you, you can fight a Codex from 2005! Want a cookie?

On a more serious note, if someone's quoting Monty Python and ending the sentence with a "I'd say it's blatantly obvious that it's a joke.

 McNinja wrote:

As for Gauss, a unit of Destroyers is 10 gauss shots. Heavy Destroyers is S9 gauss. Glancing wave serpents to death is the best way to deal with them, I think. Each roll of 6 takes off a hull point. Combined with any Gauss Immortals and warriors and especially the stormtek haywire unit, that's a lot of dead vehicles.

If your hitting on 3s and glancing on 6s, with cover saves being made on 4s, then 1 in 18 shots from gauss weapons will take a HP.

So 54 shots to down a Wave Serpent. Thats 27 Warriors (the most points efficient way to get Gauss) in rapid fire range. How are you reliably going to get those warriors into rapids of tanks with the speed and range of WSs? Deep striking is not reliable.

If you do acheive this thats still only one Wave serpent. Anni Barges, Night Scythes and HtH are the way to do it (as always).

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:

 McNinja wrote:

As for Gauss, a unit of Destroyers is 10 gauss shots. Heavy Destroyers is S9 gauss. Glancing wave serpents to death is the best way to deal with them, I think. Each roll of 6 takes off a hull point. Combined with any Gauss Immortals and warriors and especially the stormtek haywire unit, that's a lot of dead vehicles.

If your hitting on 3s and glancing on 6s, with cover saves being made on 4s, then 1 in 18 shots from gauss weapons will take a HP.

So 54 shots to down a Wave Serpent. Thats 27 Warriors (the most points efficient way to get Gauss) in rapid fire range. How are you reliably going to get those warriors into rapids of tanks with the speed and range of WSs? Deep striking is not reliable.

If you do acheive this thats still only one Wave serpent. Anni Barges, Night Scythes and HtH are the way to do it (as always).

After I wrote the post I realized 10 shot ain't crap to a wave serpent. However, putting Warriors in a NS and sending them at a WS could do the trick. 24" move, deploy, shoot, dead serpent.

Anyone try putting some heavier weapons into the night scythe and dropping them down behind the ws like heavy destroyers?

That would be hard because they are not dedicated transports for heavy destroyers. So youd have to embark turn two... then disembark turn three... it's just not efficient enough.

Getting rear shots could work, but necrons can glance anything to death so just glance glance glance.

fought 5-6 serpent+1-2 wraithknight armies, it is really insane trying to take them down. have you had such experiences? how are you all dealing with it without directly tailoring?

Yes. Serpents are insane. What army do you play? Luckily I play Tau primary with varying allies and Tau probably have the easiest time of any armies in dealing with Serpents. For most other codices, good luck. Serpents are too good for most TAC lists to deal with them.

Try to focus less on high strength, low AP weaponry and make the move towards a higher volume of lesser quality shots.

i play daemons and grey knights (ironic i know) mainly. that list can churn out atleast 70 TL S6/7 shots, of which a third ignores cover while a basic wraithknight and 2 fire prisms covers anti-armor. i personally havent seen a single strong TAC list survive against that.

for some comparison, a mobile high volume of fire army such as a ravenwing force with banner would produce the same number of shots but only S4 and doesn't ignore cover.

it is incredible firepower, given their resiliency (4++ , av12and 2+ to become a glance) and mobility.

definitely a meta changing unit that i will have to benchmark my future list against.

My 5th Ed. Grey Knight Crowe-Purifiers could probably take on such a list. Sadly, I haven't really played my 5th Ed. Purifiers since, well, since 5th ed. It consisted of Crowe, 4-5 units of psycannon purifiers in rhinos and 5-6 psyfleman dreads. They're not as competitive now as they used to be back in 5th, but it is a list that can certainly give serpent-spam trouble. However, in such a matchup, whoever goes first will have the advantage.

Yeah, it is very hard to balance having sufficient vol of fire to take out so many Wave Serpents being on an extreme end while also being capable of answering the common lists.

Necrons and Tau probably have the closest answers, though I have been trying with Turn 2 fast horde daemons or circus.

What about Hive Guard? the short range on the gun could be an issue but they have everything else that's needed to threaten the serpent.