So Eldar get all the hate, mainly because of Wave Serpents. So I put the question out there-
What do you think is wrong with them? And how do you think they should be changed?

From what the general consensus is, the main issue only really arrives when they are taken in obscene numbers. Two Wave Serpents doesn't provide an enormous amount of grief.
But regardless, down to the fluff, perhaps shooting the 'Serpent Shield' should be a once-per game thing, and then you use it. So you can use it as a defence all game, but when you shoot it, it is completely gone for the rest of the game.
Yes in lists with 6 Wave serpents this is still pretty strong, but I think it would be unfair to completely change/remove it because then it effects the players who only use one or two of them.

Do you agree, or am I being over-sympathetic towards it? Let me know

Their biggest issue is they can put out more fire power than a LR crusader and are border line more survivable. They are also drastically cheaper and the basic eldar transport. What they need is either an increase in points or a sever nerfing of the serpent shield.

The biggest problem is that the Serpent Shield is supposed to be a tradeoff between offense and defense, but the emphasis fighting vehicles has moved away from the one-shot-hope-to-explode and more onto stripping hull points so the difference between a Penetrating and a Glancing hit is academic most of the time, so there's never any incentive not to fire the Serpent Shield.

My suggestion is to make it so the Wave Serpent can't Jink after firing its Serpent Shield, make it an actual trade-off.

Put Guardians back to BS3

Act like Laser Lock never existed.

Reduce the Shield to 12" range, or less.

I would keep it mostly the same but reduce the range of the Shield to 12". I would also make it so that if the shield is fired, it cannot be fired again the following turn (so it can only be used every other turn as it "recharges"). To compensate for the nerf, though, I would suggest allowing the shield to be used in overwatch (since it's supposed to be a defensive weapon), but no other weapons can be used as well (so no laser locking it).

 AnomanderRake wrote:


My suggestion is to make it so the Wave Serpent can't Jink after firing its Serpent Shield, make it an actual trade-off.

Probably the best idea. Like the Serpent has to recharge the shield and therefore can't Jink next turn or something. That way you have to think "If I fire the shield, I'm probably going to loose the transport, will it be worth it?"

 Azreal13 wrote:
Put Guardians back to BS3

Act like Laser Lock never existed.

Reduce the Shield to 12" range, or less.

BS4 Guardians Make perfect sense. In my head, for a super-sensitive race like the Eldar, it makes sense that they are as good at shooting as an enhanced human. Saying that a member of the Eldar is as accurate as a Human guardsman isn't a particularly accurate comparison.
Laser Lock only really effects a Wraithknight, Wraithlord, War walker, Falcon and Wave serpent. Nothing else can take it. And to be fair it provides Twin-Linked to an army with barely any of it, other than twin-linked shuriken catapults and twin-linked wave serpent weapons.
But yeah, a 12" range shied would also make a lot of sense. Or maybe even like a 6" nova power, after all you are blasting a shield out.

Is it this time of the month again?

My pref is, Keep it as is but nerf the shield to 12" range.

We can deal with hullpointing out the tank.

Actually i like that nova idea a lot (though mabye 8")

It's range is far to long and it should not ignore cover. It should also be a 1 shot weapon, once it's fired the shield should be down the rest of the game.

Make the shield's gun 12'' range. Anything less doesn't address the core issue and anything more is an over-nerf.

Done, next topic.

 Desubot wrote:
Is it this time of the month again?

I just got tired of my post about Drop-Pods being too cheap, everyone just brought up wave serpents.
I thought that a nerf thread might make me understand their point a bit better

If the Shield concept is to be kept, just make it an invul save. The whole silly thing about it being a "cannon" came from its Epic incarnation, IIRC before it was ever a transport, and when Armorcast made the only 40k model for it, just drop that whole concept

Make it a 5+ invul like the War Walkers. That way Jink still has a purpose, the wargear still fits in nicely with other unit's shields, and the shield still has value in providing a level of protection against any and all incoming fire (including Ignores Cover weapons), or if the Wave Serpent chooses not to jink. Maybe drop 10pts off the base cost then?

Yeah, I think the range nerf (12 seems right, wouldnt mind 6) has the broadest support.

Probably the most widely-supported in-codex change.

 Vaktathi wrote:
If the Shield concept is to be kept, just make it an invul save. The whole silly thing about it being a "cannon" came from its Epic incarnation, IIRC before it was ever a transport, and when Armorcast made the only 40k model for it, just drop that whole concept

Make it a 5+ invul like the War Walkers. That way Jink still has a purpose, the wargear still fits in nicely with other unit's shields, and the shield still has value in providing a level of protection against any and all incoming fire (including Ignores Cover weapons), or if the Wave Serpent chooses not to jink. Maybe drop 10pts off the base cost then?

That is actually a really good idea.

I'd be down with dropping the serpent shield mechanics entirely and just giving it a 5+ invuln.

So long as it goes down to ~70 points in cost, maybe 80. Without the shield its worth is nowhere near 105 points.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd be down with dropping the serpent shield mechanics entirely and just giving it a 5+ invuln.

So long as it goes down to ~70 points in cost, maybe 80. Without the shield it's nowhere near worth 105 points.

70pts effectively Chimera priced. With the huge advantages of Jink on demand (with access to wargear that enhances that), on top of being Fast and having AV12 sides and twin linked BS4 weapons, with an innate 5+ invul, 70-80pts would be a drastic steal.

Move Wave Serpents back to a Heavy selection, and make Falcons the go-to DT. Also, get ride of Jink. That what solve most problems.

SJ

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd be down with dropping the serpent shield mechanics entirely and just giving it a 5+ invuln.

So long as it goes down to ~70 points in cost, maybe 80. Without the shield it's nowhere near worth 105 points.

70pts effectively Chimera priced. With the huge advantages of Jink on demand (with access to wargear that enhances that), on top of being Fast and having AV12 sides and twin linked BS4 weapons with an innate 5+ invul, 70-80pts would be a drastic steal.

I'd forgotten that the Chimera was bumped up to 65 (lulz, GW). But that said I think 80 points is perfectly fair. One of those "twin linked BS4 weapons" is str 4 and the other is an AP4 multi-laser with 12'' less range. It also has zero fire-points -thus your troops have to actually disembark to do anything- so I think the skimmer rules and +1 AV on the side is a fair trade up for 80 points base.

edit- I wouldn't mind seeing the side-AV go down a notch, actually. The damn thing is a troop-carrier, not a tank.

 TWilkins wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Put Guardians back to BS3

Act like Laser Lock never existed.

Reduce the Shield to 12" range, or less.

BS4 Guardians Make perfect sense. In my head, for a super-sensitive race like the Eldar, it makes sense that they are as good at shooting as an enhanced human. Saying that a member of the Eldar is as accurate as a Human guardsman isn't a particularly accurate comparison.
Laser Lock only really effects a Wraithknight, Wraithlord, War walker, Falcon and Wave serpent. Nothing else can take it. And to be fair it provides Twin-Linked to an army with barely any of it, other than twin-linked shuriken catapults and twin-linked wave serpent weapons.
But yeah, a 12" range shied would also make a lot of sense. Or maybe even like a 6" nova power, after all you are blasting a shield out.

Well, fluff =\= rules, so simply because Eldar could be considered more accurate, on a 10 point, D6 system, the jump is too big. Secondly, Guardians are ordinary Eldar, Guardsman are professional human soldiers, so even from a fluff perspective there's an argument for some parity.

But, and this is a biggie, Guardians were BS3 for over 20 years and got changed for no fathomable reason

Equally, Eldar get twin linked everywhere, they just need to use a psychic power to get it, and the fact that two of the units you mention are amongst the worst excesses of the book, I still think there's a compelling argument against it in entirety, but I chiefly meant removing it as an option from the WS.

Its weird but I think the Eldar should actually keep the AV where its at, this game already has too many transports that are soap bubbles. The shield itself... should just be scrapped OR just prevent pens, THEN make the current Incarnation a Heavy Support option at 145 points.

Bharring wrote:
Yeah, I think the range nerf (12 seems right, wouldnt mind 6) has the broadest support.

Probably the most widely-supported in-codex change.

Agreed -- range nerf is the simplest, and makes the most sense. A DT just shouldn't have tank-like firepower.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd be down with dropping the serpent shield mechanics entirely and just giving it a 5+ invuln.

So long as it goes down to ~70 points in cost, maybe 80. Without the shield it's nowhere near worth 105 points.

70pts effectively Chimera priced. With the huge advantages of Jink on demand (with access to wargear that enhances that), on top of being Fast and having AV12 sides and twin linked BS4 weapons with an innate 5+ invul, 70-80pts would be a drastic steal.

I'd forgotten that the Chimera was bumped up to 65 (lulz, GW). But that said I think 80 points is perfectly fair. One of those "twin linked BS4 weapons" is str 4 and the other is an AP4 multi-laser with 12'' less range. It also has zero fire-points -thus your troops have to actually disembark to do anything- so I think the skimmer rules and +1 AV on the side is a fair trade up for 80 points base.

edit- I wouldn't mind seeing the side-AV go down a notch, actually. The damn thing is a troop-carrier, not a tank.

It's +2 AV on the side next to a Chimera (they've always hide side AV10) on top of being 65pts now (they really did put the hurt on the poor Chimera with the last codex)

Still, the Chimera's weapons are less impressive in general and are only hitting 50% of the time instead of nearly 90% of the time, with far fewer upgrade options (especially as the Wave Serpents weapons are almost all the same price). Even a Devilfish, though it enjoys Skimmer benefits as well, is not Fast, is also BS3 (and most of its weapons are not Twin Linked), has side AV11 instead of 12, and shorter ranged weaponry, and no Shield system at all, also has no fire points, and is 80pts base.

Remove the gun shield, it should never have been there in the first place. It's a DT, not an indestructible hovering gun platform. Reduce price greatly, make the shield re-roll pens, make the Falcons/Fire Prism do their actual jobs as gunships. It's not even like they're bad, it's just that the WS is so overshadowingly good that the rest doesn't matter.

The idea of the shield is it used as a last resort. As such my change is as follows (and the few Eldar players I've talked to love it).

In the shooting phase, instead of firing its weapons, a Wave Serpent may "fire" its energy shield. If it does so, all units (friend and foe) within 6" must take a Pinning test. Until the start of its next Movement phase, the Wave Serpent has the Assault special rule. Additionally, any unit that disembarked in the previous Movement phase may charge, as if they had disembarked from a vehicle with the Assault Vehicle special rule.

Wordy, I know.

This does two of things.
First, since it is done in lieu of shooting, so no twin-linking shenanigans and strips the Serpent of its most deadly "weapon".
Second, it makes Howling Banshees (and Striking Scorpions to a lesser extent) usable again, as now they have a way to get delivered to the enemy safely.

I have to give credit here in this thread. There are multiple acceptable solutions coming from Eldar players.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd be down with dropping the serpent shield mechanics entirely and just giving it a 5+ invuln.

So long as it goes down to ~70 points in cost, maybe 80. Without the shield it's nowhere near worth 105 points.

70pts effectively Chimera priced. With the huge advantages of Jink on demand (with access to wargear that enhances that), on top of being Fast and having AV12 sides and twin linked BS4 weapons with an innate 5+ invul, 70-80pts would be a drastic steal.

I'd forgotten that the Chimera was bumped up to 65 (lulz, GW). But that said I think 80 points is perfectly fair. One of those "twin linked BS4 weapons" is str 4 and the other is an AP4 multi-laser with 12'' less range. It also has zero fire-points -thus your troops have to actually disembark to do anything- so I think the skimmer rules and +1 AV on the side is a fair trade up for 80 points base.

edit- I wouldn't mind seeing the side-AV go down a notch, actually. The damn thing is a troop-carrier, not a tank.

The Devilfish is 80 points. It can't get guns above S5 AP5 (except 2 one shot seeker missiles), isn't Fast, has AV12-11-10, also has no fire points and it is BS3.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd be down with dropping the serpent shield mechanics entirely and just giving it a 5+ invuln.

So long as it goes down to ~70 points in cost, maybe 80. Without the shield it's nowhere near worth 105 points.

70pts effectively Chimera priced. With the huge advantages of Jink on demand (with access to wargear that enhances that), on top of being Fast and having AV12 sides and twin linked BS4 weapons with an innate 5+ invul, 70-80pts would be a drastic steal.

I'd forgotten that the Chimera was bumped up to 65 (lulz, GW). But that said I think 80 points is perfectly fair. One of those "twin linked BS4 weapons" is str 4 and the other is an AP4 multi-laser with 12'' less range. It also has zero fire-points -thus your troops have to actually disembark to do anything- so I think the skimmer rules and +1 AV on the side is a fair trade up for 80 points base.

edit- I wouldn't mind seeing the side-AV go down a notch, actually. The damn thing is a troop-carrier, not a tank.

A BA razorback with assault cannon is av11/11/10, is not a skimmer, therefore lower movement and no jink, has less shots, has 24" range, carries 4 less models and is 85pts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OP. I have always preferred the idea you mentioned. If the shield is used to shoot, it is one use and then cannot therefore be used in defense again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Happyjew wrote:
The idea of the shield is it used as a last resort. As such my change is as follows (and the few Eldar players I've talked to love it).

In the shooting phase, instead of firing its weapons, a Wave Serpent may "fire" its energy shield. If it does so, all units (friend and foe) within 6" must take a Pinning test. Until the start of its next Movement phase, the Wave Serpent has the Assault special rule. Additionally, any unit that disembarked in the previous Movement phase may charge, as if they had disembarked from a vehicle with the Assault Vehicle special rule.

Wordy, I know.

This does two of things.
First, since it is done in lieu of shooting, so no twin-linking shenanigans and strips the Serpent of its most deadly "weapon".
Second, it makes Howling Banshees (and Striking Scorpions to a lesser extent) usable again, as now they have a way to get delivered to the enemy safely.

However, this ^ solves multiple problems at once. The only issue I have with it is that it becomes the fastest most durable assault vehicle in the game of the defensive part is still kept. Av12, changing all glances to pens and 3+ jink on a model with fast skimmer movement rates is too difficult to take down if ot is also an assault vehicle. I would say this is fine on the proviso that the WS did not jink in the previous turn.

I've never really heard a lot of complaints about the defensive capabilities. It's usually more about the offensive capabilities.

Of course I was perfectly fine with the Str 9+ is treated as Str 8, and opponent doesn't get extra Armour Pen dice (including the bonus roll for Ordnance).

Remove the stupid and poorly conceived rule on Scatter Lasers allowing you to fire out of sequence then twin link everything else subsequently.

If that rule went, Eldar would be much more sensible.

Today I've fought a 500 points battle against my SW friend. My army was a WS with 10 guardians and an autarch , a vyper and 6 bikes. His was a runic priest, 2 (almost full)squads of GH one in a rhino and 3 TWC.

The wave serpent did all the job, didn't roll lower than 5 on the shield shots. It Killed the TWC in 2 turns, 3rd popped the rhino, 4th killed half of a GH squad and pinned it, 5th killed half of the other. I lost 4 bikes in total, he had 4 marines and the priest left at the end of 5th.

I mean maybe I was incredibly lucky but it just didn't feel alright that a transport could deal such damage. The best course of action would be to reduce the point cost and forget about shooting the shield. Just let it be a durable transport like it should have been.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Well, fluff =\= rules, so simply because Eldar could be considered more accurate, on a 10 point, D6 system, the jump is too big. Secondly, Guardians are ordinary Eldar, Guardsman are professional human soldiers, so even from a fluff perspective there's an argument for some parity.

But, and this is a biggie, Guardians were BS3 for over 20 years and got changed for no fathomable reason

Equally, Eldar get twin linked everywhere, they just need to use a psychic power to get it, and the fact that two of the units you mention are amongst the worst excesses of the book, I still think there's a compelling argument against it in entirety, but I chiefly meant removing it as an option from the WS.

Guardians are still trained on regular basis and most of the guardians have centuries of fighting experience and training, many more than any guardsmen could ever achieve. Add to this the innate superior biology to a normal human it makes all the sense of the world to give guardians BS4, and even more for the vehicles since eldar technology is supposed to be vastly superior and therefore, more accurate.

Plus reducing attributes of the guardians would force to reduce their points. They are supposed to be the last remnants of a dying race, you are not supposed to field blobs of them like they were guardsmen.

Yes chap, I'm aware. In reality, Guardsman should probably have a BS of 2.8 and Guardians 3.3, but the system isn't in small enough increments to allow that.

Making carpenters, sculptors, musicians and chefs who are only pressed into service when the need is great the same shooting accuracy as Aspect Warriors, who dedicate all of their time for centuries to nothing but fighting and humanity's finest genetically enhanced super humans is just too far, both in a fluff sense and a rules one.

Nobody was calling for Guardians to be WS/BS 4 before the current book, and it wasn't needed to make the current book good.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Yes chap, I'm aware. In reality, Guardsman should probably have a BS of 2.8 and Guardians 3.3, but the system isn't in small enough increments to allow that.

Making carpenters, sculptors, musicians and chefs who are only pressed into service when the need is great the same shooting accuracy as Aspect Warriors, who dedicate all of their time for centuries to nothing but fighting and humanity's finest genetically enhanced super humans is just too far, both in a fluff sense and a rules one.

Nobody was calling for Guardians to be WS/BS 4 before the current book, and it wasn't needed to make the current book good.

In my old Craftworld suplement Ulthwe guardians already had BS and WS 4. The point of the guardians is that they are just limited to lowly 12" shuriken catapult which already reflect that they cannot handle anything with longer range or power (besides the pllatform). That is why the aspects get their awesome weapons and special rules. A guardian with a warp generator would probably get eaten by daemons on the first jump and they couldn't move freely in hevier armor like the aspects do.

Well the fluff is all about eldar being quicker and more agile than humans, meaning than enhanced humans should be at best on pair with them, plus they get extra toughness. Saying that it is true that the most befitting solution would be upping the Speeh Meerens and aspects to WS BS 5, but that would break the game.

Ulthwé Guardians are a special case, their Guardians have always been superior to others as they lean more heavily on them than some other Craftworlds.

The fact remains, just because something is X in the fluff, it doesn't mean it should be Y on the tabletop if it inhibits the balance of the game.

If that were the case, Space Marines would only need a Tac Squad to eliminate just about anything.

Came up with some good ideas on this thread.
Just reducing it to an inv would be the best idea, but those people saying it should be Heavy Support are being a bit harsh.
Maybe 90-100 points, 5+ inv save or the anything higher than strength 8 counts as strength rules would be fine I think. Since it has no access points and it's loosing the shield it can stand to be a few points cheaper.
And yeah, every Eldar guardian has undergone extensive training and has fought for much longer than any guardsman. Also many of them have not always been 'carpenters, sculptors, musicians and chefs' because they change paths all the time and some of them may have been 'Howling Bansees, Fire Dragons, Dark Reapers and Warp Spiders' on previous paths and therefore be readily combat trained.
This is the same as the Dire Avenger may have only just started on the path, previously spending their entire life as a poet. The Eldar change paths all the time and have so many experiences, the most dedicated of which are therefore BS5 Exarchs, who are dedicated to their path so much that they can never leave it.
Also the people who pilot vehicles are trained as pilots, they are not regular guardians.

I didn't say that's what they'd always been, it is what they currently are, and as much as some may have been Aspect Warriors when following a previous path, many may have not.

Regardless, this isn't a 40K Background thread, and randomly giving Guardians (and consequently all Eldar vehicles, Jetbikes, artillery etc..) BS4 was a bad idea from a gameplay point of view and exacerbates a lot of the other issues with the book.

60" D3+3 shots S:4 AP - Ignores Cover. Perhaps one use only.

Serpent shield to maybe something like 12" or D6+6" (to be annoying really. ). Kept as a close ranged "oh crap" thing.

In second thought, I like that "close-range-oh-crap" thing. I kept the long 60" range in my quick reply just to stand true to the original Wave Serpent, introduced back in the years of 2nd Edition Epic, which seems to be the inspiration for the current Serpent Shield.

But really, it's a different weapon from a different scale and a different game. Serpents in present-day 40k are troop transports, and as such they should be zooming to the frontlines, not hiding in the backfield sniping foes from afar.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd be down with dropping the serpent shield mechanics entirely and just giving it a 5+ invuln.

So long as it goes down to ~70 points in cost, maybe 80. Without the shield it's nowhere near worth 105 points.

70pts effectively Chimera priced. With the huge advantages of Jink on demand (with access to wargear that enhances that), on top of being Fast and having AV12 sides and twin linked BS4 weapons with an innate 5+ invul, 70-80pts would be a drastic steal.

I'd forgotten that the Chimera was bumped up to 65 (lulz, GW). But that said I think 80 points is perfectly fair. One of those "twin linked BS4 weapons" is str 4 and the other is an AP4 multi-laser with 12'' less range. It also has zero fire-points -thus your troops have to actually disembark to do anything- so I think the skimmer rules and +1 AV on the side is a fair trade up for 80 points base.

edit- I wouldn't mind seeing the side-AV go down a notch, actually. The damn thing is a troop-carrier, not a tank.

It's +2 AV on the side next to a Chimera (they've always hide side AV10) on top of being 65pts now (they really did put the hurt on the poor Chimera with the last codex)

Still, the Chimera's weapons are less impressive in general and are only hitting 50% of the time instead of nearly 90% of the time, with far fewer upgrade options (especially as the Wave Serpents weapons are almost all the same price). Even a Devilfish, though it enjoys Skimmer benefits as well, is not Fast, is also BS3 (and most of its weapons are not Twin Linked), has side AV11 instead of 12, and shorter ranged weaponry, and no Shield system at all, also has no fire points, and is 80pts base.

The Devilfish is (rightly, imo) widely considered one of the worst units in the codex, in fact in the running for worst dedicated-transport.

It's one of the hard things about trying to use other units as a metric for gauging the worth of another unit in points. You kind of need those units to be priced sensibly for it to work, and in the case of the 'Fish and now the Chimera, that's just not the case. What they did to the Chimera in particular hurts the heart. There was absolutely no need for the double-nerf. fething taurox.

RE: the Guardian debate: Guardians being BS4 makes sense, because to say that they're merely conscripts is inaccurate. Due to the nature of Craftworld society, Eldar change "jobs" frequently. An Eldar chef could have been a farseer at one points in his/her life, while a hardened Dire Avenger veteran could have been a painter. As a Guardian is merely just a civilian Eldar given a gun, it's feasible to expect them to nominally be BS4 since many Eldar if not most of their society are war veterans.

If IG Veterans can be BS4 after surviving a handful of battles, which is what the IG codex paints them as, it's certainly feasible for Guardians to be BS4.

Not arguing the point, but Farseers are seers Lost on the Path, so its one of the few roles a guardian hasn't been.

Make the Serpent Shield attack One Time Use at reduced range and make the Serpent no longer able to gain the benefits of the Shield in any form for the rest of the game.

Piss and moan about it online.

I would trade everyday the serpent shield offensive capabilities for a cheaper transport or/and an assault transport. I want to field Aspect warriors and wraithguard and let them bring the pain to my enemy, but it is impossible when the only way to keep squishy Eldar alive more than 1 turn is being in a serpent and it usually costs as much or more than the unit it contains.

Make the Shield a template, one use, and allow it when fired to act as a Assault transport as discussed previously

If the Serpent actually cared about jinking reducing its firepower then it would be a thing.

But it doesnt really have to when it is within Scatter Laser range.

 Vaktathi wrote:
If the Shield concept is to be kept, just make it an invul save. The whole silly thing about it being a "cannon" came from its Epic incarnation, IIRC before it was ever a transport, and when Armorcast made the only 40k model for it, just drop that whole concept

Make it a 5+ invul like the War Walkers. That way Jink still has a purpose, the wargear still fits in nicely with other unit's shields, and the shield still has value in providing a level of protection against any and all incoming fire (including Ignores Cover weapons), or if the Wave Serpent chooses not to jink. Maybe drop 10pts off the base cost then?

This gets my vote.

It can stay exactly the same, just raise it's point cost to be reasonable for all the things it can do. The way most players run them, they cost 130?. If that cost was instead 175 or 180, it would be more balanced.

Don't ask where I pulled that number from...it just feels right.

 Voidwraith wrote:
It can stay exactly the same, just raise it's point cost to be reasonable for all the things it can do. The way most players run them, they cost 130?. If that cost was instead 175 or 180, it would be more balanced.

Don't ask where I pulled that number from...it just feels right.

But a transport can't cost 180 points, that is the problem, either we get another transport and the serpent becomes HS or just nerf it and reduce its cost. And Eldar DO need a transport.

 Voidwraith wrote:
It can stay exactly the same, just raise it's point cost to be reasonable for all the things it can do. The way most players run them, they cost 130?. If that cost was instead 175 or 180, it would be more balanced.

Seems more logical to just drop some stuff than to have a dedicated transport cost close to 200pts.

Arnais wrote:

 Voidwraith wrote:
It can stay exactly the same, just raise it's point cost to be reasonable for all the things it can do. The way most players run them, they cost 130?. If that cost was instead 175 or 180, it would be more balanced.

Don't ask where I pulled that number from...it just feels right.

But a transport can't cost 180 points, that is the problem, either we get another transport and the serpent becomes HS or just nerf it and reduce its cost. And Eldar DO need a transport.

Land Raider. 240 (minimum) dedicated transport.

 Happyjew wrote:

Land Raider. 240 (minimum) dedicated transport.

But marines also have access to other, cheaper dedicated transports - rhinos, drop pods and razorbacks.

Would you be happy for all those to be removed so that you were just left with land raiders?

Arnais wrote:

 Voidwraith wrote:
It can stay exactly the same, just raise it's point cost to be reasonable for all the things it can do. The way most players run them, they cost 130?. If that cost was instead 175 or 180, it would be more balanced.

Don't ask where I pulled that number from...it just feels right.

But a transport can't cost 180 points, that is the problem, either we get another transport and the serpent becomes HS or just nerf it and reduce its cost. And Eldar DO need a transport.

This one can.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

Land Raider. 240 (minimum) dedicated transport.

But marines also have access to other, cheaper dedicated transports - rhinos, drop pods and razorbacks.

Would you be happy for all those to be removed so that you were just left with land raiders?

If Land Raiders could do what WS did, probably. I imagine it would get boring after a while though. But Eldar players never seem to get sick of the WS...

Make shield one shot per game and once fired, it's gone as a defensive asset. Reduce range to 24" maybe.

Boost its points significantly. The falcon is cool, players should have a reason to take it.

Maybe they should make a stripped down Eldar transport; maybe a Vyper variant that function like a Storm.

Martel732 wrote:
Maybe they should make a stripped down Eldar transport; maybe a Vyper variant that function like a Storm.

That's an interesting point, actually.

Have the WS as a very expensive transport (effectively the Eldar equivalent of a Land Raider), and then give them a cheaper transport with less defence and firepower.

Not sure if I prefer it to just removing some stuff from the WS, but it's an interesting possibility.

Martel732 wrote:


If Land Raiders could do what WS did, probably. I imagine it would get boring after a while though. But Eldar players never seem to get sick of the WS...

Don't tar us all with the same brush!!! I don't like wave serpents because of this either!!!
And also, Eldar can't have a 180 point dedicated transport. Most armies have more than one to choose from and Eldar only have one as it is. Plus the Wave Serpent is already one of the most expensive ones out there, if it was 180 points then it would be very difficult to take it.
And the Falcon cannot transport Wraithguard/Wraithblades. If a WS was 180 points base, then to transport a squad of wraithguard would cost almost 350 points. Which isn't really affordable in a 2000 point list let alone a 1500 or less.
A nerf is more appropriate than raising the point cost, unless GW provide us with a new Dedicated transport, ideally some sort of assault vehicle as we're the only army who needs one but doesn't have one as far as I know. (Which we could get in the Harlequin supplement which is rumoured to be arriving?)

The Wave Serpent is definitely better than a Rhino, but I'd love to have a Rhino to move my Aspects on occasion.

That said, we do have a lower firepower & survivability transport. Its called the Falcon. Our MBT. And it costs more. Shows how broken the Serpent's firepower is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I was hoping the last day of the Advent calender was Harlies. Where GW's gift to the game was a WS errata... (And hoping they get a DT clowncar. Needing to take a DE ally and use my favorite slot just for the clowncar is disappointing.)

Actually an appropriately priced transport would do wonders for the army size.

I often see Eldar armies on the table and I'm like "Dying race my ASS!" with how many tanks they can field!

My personal theory is that the wave serpent shield originally had a range of 0" and it was supposed to be an anti assault weapon (like the Tau flechette launcher) that could be used in the shooting phase to hit everything base to base with it. Then at the last moment before the book got published someone decided to raise the range to 6" so it could hit more models. They typed in "6" in the editing program but forgot to remove the 0. The rest is history...

It's a pretty silly idea but I figured I'd share it.

 dementedwombat wrote:
My personal theory is that the wave serpent shield originally had a range of 0" and it was supposed to be an anti assault weapon (like the Tau flechette launcher) that could be used in the shooting phase to hit everything base to base with it. Then at the last moment before the book got published someone decided to raise the range to 6" so it could hit more models. They typed in "6" in the editing program but forgot to remove the 0. The rest is history...

It's a pretty silly idea but I figured I'd share it.

Well, smaller mistakes have made larger screw-ups, so I can get behind it

Martel732 wrote:
Maybe they should make a stripped down Eldar transport; maybe a Vyper variant that function like a Storm.

Venom/Raider?

Why not? It's even a new kit to sell.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Actually an appropriately priced transport would do wonders for the army size.

I often see Eldar armies on the table and I'm like "Dying race my ASS!" with how many tanks they can field!

That being said, it's not much different to how every single GK excursion is apparently being led by Draigo.

 vipoid wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Actually an appropriately priced transport would do wonders for the army size.

I often see Eldar armies on the table and I'm like "Dying race my ASS!" with how many tanks they can field!

That being said, it's not much different to how every single GK excursion is apparently being led by Draigo.

*mumble mumble* Warp *mumble mumble* Relativity * mumble mumble*

vipoid wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Actually an appropriately priced transport would do wonders for the army size.

I often see Eldar armies on the table and I'm like "Dying race my ASS!" with how many tanks they can field!

That being said, it's not much different to how every single GK excursion is apparently being led by Draigo.

dementedwombat wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Actually an appropriately priced transport would do wonders for the army size.

I often see Eldar armies on the table and I'm like "Dying race my ASS!" with how many tanks they can field!

That being said, it's not much different to how every single GK excursion is apparently being led by Draigo.

*mumble mumble* Warp *mumble mumble* Relativity * mumble mumble*

Yeah the GK don't hit the spot for me either.

Honestly, I think Sisters are presented most fluffily in my area, as there are two of us that play them, making them relatively unimportant except in large-scale conflicts, where their superior faith and numbers relative to other power-armored foes are a significant factor.

I.E., they do well with IoM allies in apocalypse games, providing an unusually tough core of well-armed troops in large numbers.

Reduce the shield blast to 6" instead of 60"

Revert the Serpent to the rules it used for the older editions. Done. Sure the points are higher, but so were everything's. The shield gun concept is just pants-on-head.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TWilkins wrote:

Martel732 wrote:


If Land Raiders could do what WS did, probably. I imagine it would get boring after a while though. But Eldar players never seem to get sick of the WS...

Don't tar us all with the same brush!!! I don't like wave serpents because of this either!!!
And also, Eldar can't have a 180 point dedicated transport. Most armies have more than one to choose from and Eldar only have one as it is. Plus the Wave Serpent is already one of the most expensive ones out there, if it was 180 points then it would be very difficult to take it.
And the Falcon cannot transport Wraithguard/Wraithblades. If a WS was 180 points base, then to transport a squad of wraithguard would cost almost 350 points. Which isn't really affordable in a 2000 point list let alone a 1500 or less.
A nerf is more appropriate than raising the point cost, unless GW provide us with a new Dedicated transport, ideally some sort of assault vehicle as we're the only army who needs one but doesn't have one as far as I know. (Which we could get in the Harlequin supplement which is rumoured to be arriving?)

I'm in the same boat! I hate being lumped into this category when I have one freaking Wave Serpent and a Falcon. I think the shield gun is stupid.

the 'laser lock' rule should twin link all the models weapons if ALL the scatter laser shots hit.
then take 'ignores cover' off the serpent shield and its golden.
might even warrant a 10pt drop after that

SirDonlad wrote:
the 'laser lock' rule should twin link all the models weapons if ALL the scatter laser shots hit.
then take 'ignores cover' off the serpent shield and its golden.
might even warrant a 10pt drop after that

Mmmm no, still not golden; it still is pretty much free AA and a 60 inch range. I would also say ALL of the scatter laser shots having to hit is a bit much, just a majority should do.

If you use the shield as a weapon you burn it and can no longer use it for the remainder of the game.

yeah, i know. but its got to have something going for it.

i get the option of Triaros with a taghmata list which ends up around the same points as a wave serpent with scatter laser, shuriken cannon and holo fields.
but i get d6 automatic hits on any unit i tank shock and a free haywire hit on vehicles i ram and it has a flare sheild and blessed autosimulacra.

yeah, i totally agree the 60" range is ludicrous (my mechanicum 'anbaric claw' only discharges 1" when triggered) but removing 'ignores cover' kinda blunts its AA teeth i recon. my storm eagle got taken out by one from 36" away once but i don't want it to be nerfed completely

i had a chat with a mate and we thought it might be cool to have a rule for the shield system overloading if it takes too many strikes a turn or gets hit by a d-weapon.

Either remove its ability to shoot, or shooting it removes the shield.

I'd be behind either of those.

SirDonlad wrote:
yeah, i know. but its got to have something going for it.

i get the option of Triaros with a taghmata list which ends up around the same points as a wave serpent with scatter laser, shuriken cannon and holo fields.
but i get d6 automatic hits on any unit i tank shock and a free haywire hit on vehicles i ram and it has a flare sheild and blessed autosimulacra.

yeah, i totally agree the 60" range is ludicrous (my mechanicum 'anbaric claw' only discharges 1" when triggered) but removing 'ignores cover' kinda blunts its AA teeth i recon. my storm eagle got taken out by one from 36" away once but i don't want it to be nerfed completely

i had a chat with a mate and we thought it might be cool to have a rule for the shield system overloading if it takes too many strikes a turn or gets hit by a d-weapon.

However, the Triaros has no save (i.e. no Jink), must get into very close range for it's primary weapon (the shock ram) to work, and the Mauler Bolt Cannon and Volkite Sentinels do not make for spectacular displays of firepower (though by no means bad).

Wave Serpents are fine....you hear complaints of low caliber players. You can assault them and kill them with almost anything. People who complain are bad and have 1850 lists with like two anti tank guns.

Centurions have split fire...re rollable...grav cannons las cannons or missile launchers....and powerfists in close combat....a 2+ save and invul save and tank hunter. If you want to complain complain about that.

Necrons also have very comperable shooting with AV13...

Its not an issue people are just bad at this game.


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 Lobukia wrote:
Either remove its ability to shoot, or shooting it removes the shield.

I'd be behind either of those.

Thats currently how it works rofl

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Wave Serpents are fine....you hear complaints of low caliber players. You can assault them and kill them with almost anything. People who complain are bad and have 1850 lists with like two anti tank guns.

Centurions have split fire...re rollable...grav cannons las cannons or missile launchers....and powerfists in close combat....a 2+ save and invul save. If you want to complain complain about that.

Necrons also have very comperable shooting with AV13...

Its not an issue people are just bad at this game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lobukia wrote:
Either remove its ability to shoot, or shooting it removes the shield.

I'd be behind either of those.

Thats currently how it works rofl

Cents don't have invulnerables, they have to buy split fire, grav, lascannons, they do not come stock with powerfists nor tank hunter. If you are going to make claims it helps when they are true if you want to be taken seriosuly. They also cost 60 ponts a model base, so they are literally 2 models per serpent. I mean seriously, where did you pull this from?

Also your signature isn't very... helpful to your cause

28-9-1 In Tournaments As Eldar.
Maintained a 75% Win Ratio As Eldar in 5th Edition GT's.

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Wave Serpents are fine....you hear complaints of low caliber players. You can assault them and kill them with almost anything. People who complain are bad and have 1850 lists with like two anti tank guns.

Centurions have split fire...re rollable...grav cannons las cannons or missile launchers....and powerfists in close combat....a 2+ save and invul save and tank hunter. If you want to complain complain about that.

Necrons also have very comperable shooting with AV13...

Its not an issue people are just bad at this game.

How am I going to assault something with a 48" move range? I could probably catch one with a storm raven on turn 3 and have some troops jump out then, but that's a rather late assault involving a minimum of 340 points to destroy a 145 point transport. The charge after deepstriking BA formation could catch a WS, A wraithknight could prossibly do a number on it, but then you've got eldar fighting eldar, so who cares, just bring your own serpents. Daemon princes will get smashed from being in glide mode for a turn minimum before charging it. I can't bring anything else to mind that could realistically catch a Serpent and assault it.

The only thing that can shoot it down with reliability is a Sicaran (many places don't allow FW) or Riptide/Broadsides/Seeker Missiles with Marker light assistance.

I think you'll find that WS are complained about by the remaining handful of non-eldar competative players too, and if you think for even a second that they're not far, far too good for their pots cost, then you're deluding yourself.

Quickjager already noted that virtually all your claims about cents were wrong, so I'll not re-hash them, but just reinforce that they are strong, but no-where near as broken as Serpents are.

 Quickjager wrote:
Also your signature isn't very... helpful to your cause

28-9-1 In Tournaments As Eldar.
Maintained a 75% Win Ratio As Eldar in 5th Edition GT's.

Eldar didn't have super serpents in 5th edition, and were by all rights garbage compared to MSU Marines and Guard.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
Also your signature isn't very... helpful to your cause

28-9-1 In Tournaments As Eldar.
Maintained a 75% Win Ratio As Eldar in 5th Edition GT's.

Eldar didn't have super serpents in 5th edition, and were by all rights garbage compared to MSU Marines and Guard.

Fair enough.

The shield is described as a point-defense weapon, so make it such.

6" or 12" range solves the entire WS problem all on its own. making it a good transport as it can support the squads up close, but not a good ranged shooting platform as it has to get very close.

One use only on serpent shield as a weapon, if used shield loses defensive buffs, drop to 48" range from 60".

However nerfing the ws is irrelevant when the rest of the codex is powerful enough to ignore the change anyway. If it was gone tomorrow their would be some tears but right behind it would be new flavor of the month spams. The eldar codex needs a whole rewriting whole pages worth of things would need to be changed to mitigate their strength in any considerable way. And even then at this point Its a bit too little too late. They've already had their fun in the sun.

What I would do with eldar is price jack everything, relics units, vehicles, mc's, hq's the shebang and start reworking their vehicles an unit rules. Such as say remove shrunken catapults entirely on infantry, move Jetbikes to fast, make the wraithknight a Lord or war. Really break their army down and rebuild it fundamentally from its bare roots. Make the army fee more elite and make their biggest and fanciest toys feel actually special instead of in every army this side of the equator. And get rid if obsolete items as independent options; like making vypers and upgrade the Jetbike teams as an add-on like marine attack bikes.

I'd also get rid of some other units due to their volatile nature to the slots they inhabit like the spiritseer as an example.

The eldar as a codex don't need a fix here and there they need hardcore open heart surgery

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Wave Serpents are fine....you hear complaints of low caliber players. You can assault them and kill them with almost anything. People who complain are bad and have 1850 lists with like two anti tank guns.

Or from eveyone except "Super awesome players" like you must be - there are always a few people who defndd the indefensible - usally so they can win and claim they are skilled when the opposite is true

How strange that you are Eldar player and think Cheese Serpents are fine - who would have thought it............ sheesh you give other Eldar players like me a bad name

"The only thing that match's the Eldar's firepower, is their arrogance".

or are you just striving for this?

I would be in favour of changing it's shooting ability to allowing the shield to expand to a 6"bubble around the WS which would grant a 5+ invul to units within the bubble.

The shield would then be down until the next turn as happens now.

I think this makes more sense as it is a 'shield' afterall. It would also encourage it's use as a transport more because you could disembark units and give them some protection when they get out and stand there.

So 3-4 WS shielding 3-4 WK with t8 6w and perma +5inv and unlike the +4 landing platform the formation would be very dynamic int he movment phase or having 2-3 in every DE army to spread +5inv to the whole army..

The biggest problem with the Wave Serpent is that you can take 6+ in a standard CAD + Allied format.

Interestingly enough, the biggest weakness of Orks is that you can't take 20 units of boyz with truks in a standard CAD + Allied format.

In other words, the real problem right now is the very reductive meta focused on CAD+Allied which favors a few select builds: IK (yes, they win more than Eldar), WS Spam, Broadside Spam, Screamerstar, CenturionStar, Bakery, AV13 spam and then a few odd things.

Because single CAD + Allied is so limited (at 1850 points), there can only be so many good builds and anything that's free from the CAD shackles, like Wave Serpents, formations, alternate detachments or Imperial Knights (effectively multiple LoW in a single army) will create a problem.

Of course some of them don't, because they're not good enough formations or alternate detachments, but some of them clearly hurt.

I don't think Wave Serpents can dominate in unbound and I would be surprised if the screamerstar wouldn't be surrounded by counters in that environment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ionusx wrote:
One use only on serpent shield as a weapon, if used shield loses defensive buffs, drop to 48" range from 60".

However nerfing the ws is irrelevant when the rest of the codex is powerful enough to ignore the change anyway. If it was gone tomorrow their would be some tears but right behind it would be new flavor of the month spams. The eldar codex needs a whole rewriting whole pages worth of things would need to be changed to mitigate their strength in any considerable way. And even then at this point Its a bit too little too late. They've already had their fun in the sun.

What I would do with eldar is price jack everything, relics units, vehicles, mc's, hq's the shebang and start reworking their vehicles an unit rules. Such as say remove shrunken catapults entirely on infantry, move Jetbikes to fast, make the wraithknight a Lord or war. Really break their army down and rebuild it fundamentally from its bare roots. Make the army fee more elite and make their biggest and fanciest toys feel actually special instead of in every army this side of the equator. And get rid if obsolete items as independent options; like making vypers and upgrade the Jetbike teams as an add-on like marine attack bikes.

I'd also get rid of some other units due to their volatile nature to the slots they inhabit like the spiritseer as an example.

The eldar as a codex don't need a fix here and there they need hardcore open heart surgery

Is there a traumatic event in your childhood involving Eldar that you would like to share with us ?

Here, have a blanket and warm coco, you're safe now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Wave Serpents are fine....you hear complaints of low caliber players. You can assault them and kill them with almost anything. People who complain are bad and have 1850 lists with like two anti tank guns.

Centurions have split fire...re rollable...grav cannons las cannons or missile launchers....and powerfists in close combat....a 2+ save and invul save and tank hunter. If you want to complain complain about that.

Necrons also have very comperable shooting with AV13...

Its not an issue people are just bad at this game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lobukia wrote:
Either remove its ability to shoot, or shooting it removes the shield.

I'd be behind either of those.

Thats currently how it works rofl

Indeed, if Eldar have trouble getting more than 54% win rate, i.e. the same as Tau, Necron and Daemons, then maybe - just maybe - Wave Serpents don't just auto win the game even if you leave them in reserve and let your little sister play.

Makumba wrote:
So 3-4 WS shielding 3-4 WK with t8 6w and perma +5inv and unlike the +4 landing platform the formation would be very dynamic int he movment phase or having 2-3 in every DE army to spread +5inv to the whole army..

Well maybe the rule could be that it provides 'infantry' with a 5+ invul within 6"? It was just an idea that popped into my head as i was reading the thread. I don't think it has to be a weapon.

Bharring wrote:
The Wave Serpent is definitely better than a Rhino, but I'd love to have a Rhino to move my Aspects on occasion.

But is it definitely better than a pod ?
Would you not rather put your fire dragons in pods instead of risking 255 points every time by bringing a Wave Serpent into easy charge range and stranding Fire Dragons where they're guaranteed to die ?

Rhinos are nothing to sniff at, for 140 points you've got four Rhinos, that's 12 HB shots and 12 AV11 HP, four different targets, four explodes results.
With our Aspect Warriors so terrible without transports (and with transports arguably), those wouldn't be a bad thing.
They're excellent LOS blockers that move 18 inches a turn and can benefit from terrain cover saves much easier than Wave Serpents.

Summary is, people whine way too much about Wave Serpents, can't you take one year of two of Eldar dominance in one specific army format (CAD+Allies) like we've taken years of IoM abuse ?

Volcano Cannon. That or a Heirophant

morgoth wrote:

But is it definitely better than a pod ?

I think the roles are too different for a straight-up comparison.

morgoth wrote:

Would you not rather put your fire dragons in pods instead of risking 255 points every time by bringing a Wave Serpent into easy charge range and stranding Fire Dragons where they're guaranteed to die ?

Might it not depend on what you're facing, how you want to use them etc.?

Some armies are much better at castling up and/or defending their vehicles from drop pods than others. Or, you may want to use them against a vehicle that is coming in from reserve. Or, hell, you might just want to buy a massive tank that doesn't take up a FoC slot as an extra for your unit.

morgoth wrote:

Rhinos are nothing to sniff at, for 140 points you've got four Rhinos, that's 12 HB shots and 12 AV11 HP, four different targets, four explodes results.

Rhinos don't come with Heavy Bolters, nor can they buy them.

Also, 140pts is a pretty meaningless figure. You've just spent 140pts for 4 storm bolters. What about the passengers?

...can't you take one year of two of Eldar dominance in one specific army format (CAD+Allies) like we've taken years of IoM abuse ?

Aaaand this is why we can't have nice things.

I might be getting my first wave serpent if I get this ebay deal tonight...

Please don't hate..

But an assault vehicle would be nice for getting those banshees into cc... hmmmm

morgoth wrote:

Rhinos are nothing to sniff at, for 140 points you've got four Rhinos, that's 12 HB shots and 12 AV11 HP, four different targets, four explodes results.
With our Aspect Warriors so terrible without transports (and with transports arguably), those wouldn't be a bad thing.
They're excellent LOS blockers that move 18 inches a turn and can benefit from terrain cover saves much easier than Wave Serpents.

Summary is, people whine way too much about Wave Serpents, can't you take one year of two of Eldar dominance in one specific army format (CAD+Allies) like we've taken years of IoM abuse ?

rhinos don't have heavy bolters. it is easier to get cover when to get it all you have to do is move, and even if you somehow need actual terrain being able to fly over stuff makes it easier to position well. As domination goes. RT=eldar OP. 2ed=eldar OP. 3ed=eldar OP . 3.5/4ed=eldar OP. 5ed eldar=good till codex GK. 6th ed=eldar OP. 7th=eldar OP.

Sure looks like dominance of IoM armies.

Every army in the game can replicate 7 mid strength shots with multiple units. People who complain about serpents are bad low tier players who play static bad army lists.

Stop being bad....open ur codex....and learn to play your army.

The biggest weakness is close combat. Any squad with anything can kill them in close combat. If you force them to move 12+ they stop shooting and problem solved.

Smitty, you offer the least constructive advice I've seen.

Holy gak man, how many wave serpents do you have? I just looked at your gallery.

I can't tell if you're being serious or making fun of the usual arguments defending serpents.

There's a law that describes this I think...

Notice the bragging about wins with Eldar in his sig. Not hard to see why one would be touchy about Wave Serpents losing their status with such an attachement to win rates with Eldar like that shown so prominently. I'm sure Wave Serpents are a rather large factor in that

Complaining about 7 str6/7 shots is laughable especially considering every army in the game can replicate the firepower for the same points in some slot.

Anahilation Barges have the same firepower....are armor 13 ...and have tesla. Why not complain about that as well as its better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Notice the bragging about wins with Eldar in his sig. Not hard to see why one would be touchy about Wave Serpents losing their status with such an attachement to win rates with Eldar like that shown so prominently. I'm sure Wave Serpents are a rather large factor in that

That was during 5th when Eldar were basically a dead codex.

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Complaining about 7 str6/7 shots is laughable especially considering every army in the game can replicate the firepower for the same points in some slot.

I challenge you to replicate that firepower with Dark Eldar.

Don't worry, I'll wait.

People do complain about the Annihilation Barge. That said, while Necrons are certainly powerful and have a couple units, like Annihilation Barges, that could use some toning down, Annihilation Barge spam isn't routinely landing top place at major events the way Serpent Spam armies are.

Additionally, the AB can't be taken in the same numbers as a Wave Serpent, has a *far* shorter range (24" compared with 60" on the Serpent Shield and 36" on Scatterlasers), doesn't ignore cover, can't be super scoring, and can't be made a practically unstoppable delivery system. A lot of S7 spam units in other armies have also gotten toned down of late. Rifleman dreads certainly aren't as solid as they were a couple of years ago in 5E, and the poor Hydra has been hammered into practical uselessness.

 vipoid wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Complaining about 7 str6/7 shots is laughable especially considering every army in the game can replicate the firepower for the same points in some slot.

I challenge you to replicate that firepower with Dark Eldar.

Don't worry, I'll wait.

You can bring two venoms with double splinters for the price of a serpent. Venoms are a little less effective against low toughness infamtry....but much more effective at high t units like knights and nids.

Your anti infantry tool is assaults which eldar have a hard time doing with their one dimensional codex.

 Smitty0305 wrote:

You can bring two venoms with double splinters for the price of a serpent. Venoms are a little less effective against low toughness infamtry....but much more effective at high t units like knights and nids.

And can't hurt vehicles. At all.

Also, when you say that the WS guns are less effective against MCs, are you taking into account that they're TL? Or, that some of your weapons have pseudo-rending?

Regardless, you said that all armies could field units that put out 7 S6/7 shots for the same cost as a Wave Serpent.

I ask again, how do you do this with DE?

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Complaining about 7 str6/7 shots is laughable especially considering every army in the game can replicate the firepower for the same points in some slot.

I challenge you to replicate that firepower with Dark Eldar.

Don't worry, I'll wait.

You can bring two venoms with double splinters for the price of a serpent. Venoms are a little less effective against low toughness infamtry....but much more effective at high t units like knights and nids.

With nowhere near the survivability even put together.

They're also not going to do anything to a Knight given that is has no T value, those S1 Posion 4+ cannons aren't going to hurt AV13.

The Wave Serpent will at least potentially be able to hurt a Knight, and be outstandingly effective at engaging lighter vehicles, and still not bad at engaging a many high T infantry units, only falling behind *two* dual-cannon vencoms by about 33% against a T6 MC while being more capable against most infantry and vehicles.

Yeah, every army has "their unit" that is powerful as well as efficient, but most of the time, there's usually a phase of the game said unit doesn't perform well in, OR, it pays through the nose to be as good as it is. The wave serpent, with its maneuverability, long range firepower, decent armor rating, shield option, jink option, and easy to pay cost, basically has no weakness. There's nothing in the game that it doesn't have going for it, and THAT'S why people find them to be obnoxious.

Comparing it to the annihilation barge, btw, is rediculous. The barge wishes it had the range, speed, and transport capacity of the wave serpent, and it would gladly pay the handful of points that make up the difference between the two models.

I think my favorite comparison for the WS is the Autocannon Dreadnought. Look at the difference between the two; one is a dedicated long range light AV popping unit and the other is that AND...

1. A transport
2. More shots (Though half are snapshots)
3. 12 inch longer range
4. Ignore Cover
5. Cheaper
6. Faster
7. Better
8. Daft Punk
9. More durable
10. Obj Secured

Vipoid kind of a makes sense. Every army can ally in wave serpents ergo every army has access to multi shot str 7 weapons on super durable skimer platforms. He aint lying .

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Every army in the game can replicate 7 mid strength shots with multiple units. People who complain about serpents are bad low tier players who play static bad army lists.

Stop being bad....open ur codex....and learn to play your army.

The biggest weakness is close combat. Any squad with anything can kill them in close combat. If you force them to move 12+ they stop shooting and problem solved.

Simply lies and misinformation

As is usual with Wave Serpent appologist he is unable to put forward any kind of logcal argument apart for L2P or soon to eb heard - just ally in Eldar and "cheese it up like me"

morgoth wrote:
The biggest problem with the Wave Serpent is that you can take 6+ in a standard CAD + Allied format.

Interestingly enough, the biggest weakness of Orks is that you can't take 20 units of boyz with truks in a standard CAD + Allied format.

In other words, the real problem right now is the very reductive meta focused on CAD+Allied which favors a few select builds: IK (yes, they win more than Eldar), WS Spam, Broadside Spam, Screamerstar, CenturionStar, Bakery, AV13 spam and then a few odd things.

Because single CAD + Allied is so limited (at 1850 points), there can only be so many good builds and anything that's free from the CAD shackles, like Wave Serpents, formations, alternate detachments or Imperial Knights (effectively multiple LoW in a single army) will create a problem.

Of course some of them don't, because they're not good enough formations or alternate detachments, but some of them clearly hurt.

I don't think Wave Serpents can dominate in unbound and I would be surprised if the screamerstar wouldn't be surrounded by counters in that environment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ionusx wrote:
One use only on serpent shield as a weapon, if used shield loses defensive buffs, drop to 48" range from 60".

However nerfing the ws is irrelevant when the rest of the codex is powerful enough to ignore the change anyway. If it was gone tomorrow their would be some tears but right behind it would be new flavor of the month spams. The eldar codex needs a whole rewriting whole pages worth of things would need to be changed to mitigate their strength in any considerable way. And even then at this point Its a bit too little too late. They've already had their fun in the sun.

What I would do with eldar is price jack everything, relics units, vehicles, mc's, hq's the shebang and start reworking their vehicles an unit rules. Such as say remove shrunken catapults entirely on infantry, move Jetbikes to fast, make the wraithknight a Lord or war. Really break their army down and rebuild it fundamentally from its bare roots. Make the army fee more elite and make their biggest and fanciest toys feel actually special instead of in every army this side of the equator. And get rid if obsolete items as independent options; like making vypers and upgrade the Jetbike teams as an add-on like marine attack bikes.

I'd also get rid of some other units due to their volatile nature to the slots they inhabit like the spiritseer as an example.

The eldar as a codex don't need a fix here and there they need hardcore open heart surgery

Is there a traumatic event in your childhood involving Eldar that you would like to share with us ?

Here, have a blanket and warm coco, you're safe now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Wave Serpents are fine....you hear complaints of low caliber players. You can assault them and kill them with almost anything. People who complain are bad and have 1850 lists with like two anti tank guns.

Centurions have split fire...re rollable...grav cannons las cannons or missile launchers....and powerfists in close combat....a 2+ save and invul save and tank hunter. If you want to complain complain about that.

Necrons also have very comperable shooting with AV13...

Its not an issue people are just bad at this game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lobukia wrote:
Either remove its ability to shoot, or shooting it removes the shield.

I'd be behind either of those.

Thats currently how it works rofl

Indeed, if Eldar have trouble getting more than 54% win rate, i.e. the same as Tau, Necron and Daemons, then maybe - just maybe - Wave Serpents don't just auto win the game even if you leave them in reserve and let your little sister play.

not at all but the fact is some armies have no answers at all for eldar that's being totally blunt orks come to mind as an army that can't cope with them. They have no answers to anything they field at all really. The tempestus also have the same problem, and the dark angels and chaos marines are also incapable of dealing with them, or they struggle a lot more than other armies would. And that'a not because of player skill it's because the books are actually that bad.

and regardless of what you want to argue their book is loaded with things that are too easily abused. It's also fact that the codex is devoid of bad units. The worst thing you can say about the worst eldar units is that their "situational" or "sub optimal". And they can literally assemble even basic lists and expect to do reasons ably well against well though out lists regardless of the player experience levels at the table that day. I dont pretend to play meta-game netlists I'm a dark angel my codex couldnt tango in a competitive environment if its existence depended on it. And frankly I don't care about that but even I see the bad units in my codex. I wish I could field an lsv without throwing away 200 points, or therminators (see what I did there cause their terminators but they burn up like thermite an ahhhahaha eheehehe I'll show myself out), or other units in my codex without them literally getting nothing meaningful accomplished before they die regardless of the nature of environment I play them in. I have friends who play other at armies who would love to dust off models that never see table time for many a good reason just like me such as warbuggies and ravenors and a host of others. And something must be done to bring them down to our level because it's a heck of a lot easier to change them than rewrite the rules for what is at least two dozen cases of garbadge rules for nice models scattered across many codecies.

The eldar need a new codex and they need to have a lot more restrain when writing it than they showed writing their current codex and then we can all have terrible books togeather. Because then at least you can say the army books are consistently terrible.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Every army in the game can replicate 7 mid strength shots with multiple units. People who complain about serpents are bad low tier players who play static bad army lists.

Stop being bad....open ur codex....and learn to play your army.

The biggest weakness is close combat. Any squad with anything can kill them in close combat. If you force them to move 12+ they stop shooting and problem solved.

Simply lies and misinformation

As is usual with Wave Serpent appologist he is unable to put forward any kind of logcal argument apart for L2P or soon to eb heard - just ally in Eldar and "cheese it up like me"

Your wrong spelling of logical and lack of facts as well is amusing.

WS is OP.

That said, Harlies have a long way to go before they can match even Banshees. CW Eldar do have some bad units.

These threads always retread the same thoughts.

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Every army in the game can replicate 7 mid strength shots with multiple units. People who complain about serpents are bad low tier players who play static bad army lists.

Stop being bad....open ur codex....and learn to play your army.

The biggest weakness is close combat. Any squad with anything can kill them in close combat. If you force them to move 12+ they stop shooting and problem solved.

Simply lies and misinformation

As is usual with Wave Serpent appologist he is unable to put forward any kind of logcal argument apart for L2P or soon to eb heard - just ally in Eldar and "cheese it up like me"

Your wrong spelling of logical and lack of facts as well is amusing.

Except...he pegged your post pretty accurately, it was almost literally just "L2P". If all you've got to retort with is spelling issues, your argument is pretty thin.

Fact is, Wave Serpent spam lists are taking top tables routinely, the Nova Open being a prime example.

Hell, I've got 5 Wave Serpents myself and I think they could use some notable toning down.

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Every army in the game can replicate 7 mid strength shots with multiple units. People who complain about serpents are bad low tier players who play static bad army lists.

Stop being bad....open ur codex....and learn to play your army.

The biggest weakness is close combat. Any squad with anything can kill them in close combat. If you force them to move 12+ they stop shooting and problem solved.

Simply lies and misinformation

As is usual with Wave Serpent appologist he is unable to put forward any kind of logcal argument apart for L2P or soon to eb heard - just ally in Eldar and "cheese it up like me"

Your wrong spelling of logical and lack of facts as well is amusing.

You lack of inteligent argument is annoying so I assume you are just trolling - no other explanation for your apparent stupidity

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Complaining about 7 str6/7 shots is laughable especially considering every army in the game can replicate the firepower for the same points in some slot.

I challenge you to replicate that firepower with Dark Eldar.

Don't worry, I'll wait.

You can bring two venoms with double splinters for the price of a serpent. Venoms are a little less effective against low toughness infamtry....but much more effective at high t units like knights and nids.

Your anti infantry tool is assaults which eldar have a hard time doing with their one dimensional codex.

I'm still waiting for how any other Codex gets 4.5 S7 shots, 4 S6 shots, and 3 S6 pseudo-Rending shots (all BS4 twin-linked) on a light tank platform that moves like a Fast Skimmer and has 3+ jink for under 150pts as a Dedicated Transport.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(The closest thing to the firepower and the pricepoint I can find is the Sicarian, but that's a Heavy Support choice and isn't as fast or transport capable)

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Every army in the game can replicate 7 mid strength shots with multiple units. People who complain about serpents are bad low tier players who play static bad army lists.

Stop being bad....open ur codex....and learn to play your army.

The biggest weakness is close combat. Any squad with anything can kill them in close combat. If you force them to move 12+ they stop shooting and problem solved.

Simply lies and misinformation

As is usual with Wave Serpent appologist he is unable to put forward any kind of logcal argument apart for L2P or soon to eb heard - just ally in Eldar and "cheese it up like me"

Your wrong spelling of logical and lack of facts as well is amusing.

You lack of inteligent argument is annoying so I assume you are just trolling - no other explanation for your apparent stupidity

You misspelled Intelligent , as well as Logical. The irony of calling someone stupid while misspelling those words is paramount.

 Smitty0305 wrote:

You misspelled Intelligent , as well as Logical. The irony of calling someone stupid while misspelling those words is paramount.

Ironic or not, his point is still valid.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Complaining about 7 str6/7 shots is laughable especially considering every army in the game can replicate the firepower for the same points in some slot.

I challenge you to replicate that firepower with Dark Eldar.

Don't worry, I'll wait.

You can bring two venoms with double splinters for the price of a serpent. Venoms are a little less effective against low toughness infamtry....but much more effective at high t units like knights and nids.

Your anti infantry tool is assaults which eldar have a hard time doing with their one dimensional codex.

I'm still waiting for how any other Codex gets 4.5 S7 shots, 4 S6 shots, and 3 S6 pseudo-Rending shots (all BS4 twin-linked) on a light tank platform that moves like a Fast Skimmer and has 3+ jink for under 150pts as a Dedicated Transport.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(The closest thing to the firepower and the pricepoint I can find is the Sicarian, but that's a Heavy Support choice and isn't as fast or transport capable)

I've always been a huge fan of the DE codex, as well as DE players. Hopefully one day I can get my DE units painted and on a table.

Your twisting my words a little bit. I didn't say "Same Amount of Same Shots", I said "Replicate the Fire Power".

The main thing Dark Eldar does is to bring mass Str8 Dark Lance Shooting, and either kill the troops that fall out with mass Splinter Fire from Venoms, or through assaulting units.

The main thing I would do is look at a 5 Wave Serpent 2 WraithKnight 1850 Eldar Army, Compared to a 6 Venom 3 Raider 3 Ravager 1850 Dark Eldar Army. Compare the amount of shots, Compare the effectiveness of those shots on MEQ T4 Units, and compare how many Rhinos each list can kill in a player turn. From doing the math previously the two armies have very similar shot effectiveness output.

I can literally do the Math later today, but right now Im watching NFL and typing during commercials.

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Every army in the game can replicate 7 mid strength shots with multiple units. People who complain about serpents are bad low tier players who play static bad army lists.

Stop being bad....open ur codex....and learn to play your army.

The biggest weakness is close combat. Any squad with anything can kill them in close combat. If you force them to move 12+ they stop shooting and problem solved.

Simply lies and misinformation

As is usual with Wave Serpent appologist he is unable to put forward any kind of logcal argument apart for L2P or soon to eb heard - just ally in Eldar and "cheese it up like me"

Your wrong spelling of logical and lack of facts as well is amusing.

You lack of inteligent argument is annoying so I assume you are just trolling - no other explanation for your apparent stupidity

You misspelled Intelligent , as well as Logical. The irony of calling someone stupid while misspelling those words is paramount.

I can learn to spell or use a spell check - can you become intelligent or do more than spout meaningless drivel like L2P ?

Oh and remember oh super awesome player that you apparently are - I play Eldar as well - whereas you are vaguely thinking about playing something else - have you any actual experience in facing Wave Serpents with non eldar forces?

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
<LONG>

I've always been a huge fan of the DE codex, as well as DE players. Hopefully one day I can get my DE units painted and on a table.

Your twisting my words a little bit. I didn't say "Same Amount of Same Shots", I said "Replicate the Fire Power".

The main thing Dark Eldar does is to bring mass Str8 Dark Lance Shooting, and either kill the troops that fall out with mass Splinter Fire from Venoms, or through assaulting units.

The main thing I would do is look at a 5 Wave Serpent 2 WraithKnight 1850 Eldar Army, Compared to a 6 Venom 3 Raider 3 Ravager 1850 Dark Eldar Army. Compare the amount of shots, Compare the effectiveness of those shots on MEQ T4 Units, and compare how many Rhinos each list can kill in a player turn. From doing the math previously the two armies have very similar shot effectiveness output.

I can literally do the Math later today, but right now Im watching NFL and typing during commercials.

I'm sorry, I think I'm missing something. Are you trying to say that there is one unit somewhere in the DE Codex that is comparable in firepower, durability, mobility, and general utility to the Wave Serpent at the same pricepoint? Can you tell me which one?

 Smitty0305 wrote:


Your twisting my words a little bit. I didn't say "Same Amount of Same Shots", I said "Replicate the Fire Power".

The main thing Dark Eldar does is to bring mass Str8 Dark Lance Shooting, and either kill the troops that fall out with mass Splinter Fire from Venoms, or through assaulting units.

The main thing I would do is look at a 5 Wave Serpent 2 WraithKnight 1850 Eldar Army, Compared to a 6 Venom 3 Raider 3 Ravager 1850 Dark Eldar Army. Compare the amount of shots, Compare the effectiveness of those shots on MEQ T4 Units, and compare how many Rhinos each list can kill in a player turn. From doing the math previously the two armies have very similar shot effectiveness output.

holy f#*k dude you're the biggest power player I've ever seen! 5 serps and 2 wraithknights in ONE list?! 10/10 for commitment but... ...yeesh.

'same amount of same shots' and 'replicate the firepower' mean the same thing btw.

My personal approach to toning down the wave serpent is to only bring two of them. Fixed.

SirDonlad wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:


Your twisting my words a little bit. I didn't say "Same Amount of Same Shots", I said "Replicate the Fire Power".

The main thing Dark Eldar does is to bring mass Str8 Dark Lance Shooting, and either kill the troops that fall out with mass Splinter Fire from Venoms, or through assaulting units.

The main thing I would do is look at a 5 Wave Serpent 2 WraithKnight 1850 Eldar Army, Compared to a 6 Venom 3 Raider 3 Ravager 1850 Dark Eldar Army. Compare the amount of shots, Compare the effectiveness of those shots on MEQ T4 Units, and compare how many Rhinos each list can kill in a player turn. From doing the math previously the two armies have very similar shot effectiveness output.

holy f#*k dude you're the biggest power player I've ever seen! 5 serps and 2 wraithknights in ONE list?! 10/10 for commitment but... ...yeesh.

'same amount of same shots' and 'replicate the firepower' mean the same thing btw.

Not exactly. A Sicarian has six shots compared to the Wave Serpent's average of 10.5, but I call them 'roughly equivalent' because they're built for the same role, have the same to-hit, are good against the same targets, and the Sicarian's putting out Rending S7 in comparison to the Wave Serpent's mix of S7 and S6.

My personal approach (without changing the rules) is just not utilize the offensive capabilities of the shield.

Lets take a minute and actually look at the Math

Wave Serpent
-Scatter Laser, 4 TL BS4 Str6 Shots.
-Shield, D6+1 Str7 Shots, Pinning, Ignore Cover
-Shuriken Cannon (24" Range which is in enemy assault range, If you move 12 it snap fires. Most times you need to move to capture maelstroms and move from threats. Alot of Eldar players do not bring this).

A scatter laser has a 66.66% Chance to hit, so you have 2.64 Shots hit. 0.66*1.46 adds around 0.891 more shots. So your going to have around 3.51 of your scatter laser shots hitting.

A Serpent Shield will average 3.5 shots per game. They will be twin linked so you will get 2.31+0.785 = 3.09 Shots.

So an average wave serpent is going to get 3.51+3.09 hits per player turn or 6.6 hits per player turn. Of this you need a 2+ to would most infantry, so your going to get 6.6 * 0.833 or 5.478 wounds. Of the those a space marine is going to save 66% of them so 1.8 Space Marine a turn will die. If you have 5 of these your going to on average kill 9 Space Marines a turn.....so your taking out around 135 Points with an Investment of 600 points.

Wave Serpent
-Total of 6.59 Shots hitting per game, causing 5.478 wounds on MEQ T4, or killing around 1.8 Marines per Turn.

I personally dont see how thats overpowered for a main battle tank.

I personally dont see how thats overpowered for a main battle tank.

Which is exactly what its NOT supoposed to be - its a transport FFS

So it does this every turn - and is far more effective against enemy DT's - as you well know.

sorry, I'm an engineer and 'replicate' means to make an exact copy of something within a given tolerance and 'same amount of same shots' suggests an identical set of shots is to be produced. which is why i say they are the same. the word 'replicate' adds the inference that there might be some degree of accepted difference, but I've got to be a stickler and note that 40k/30k rules only deal in polynomials.

Because it isn't a fething MBT, it's a APC.

Theres also the next argument , talking about their survive ability versus their ability to kill 1.8 marines per turn.

A Squad of 10 Marines with Krak Grenades charge a Wave Serpent
-6.6 Grenades hit on a 3+
-3.3 Glancing/Penetrating results on a 4+
-Wave Serpent Dead.

Charging 10 Krak Grenade marines into a tank is hard?

A Sqaud of 5 Sternguard with Combi Meltas Drop Pod down into Melta Range behind the serpent
-3.3 Shots Hit
-Your Can get 100% of those as results so, Assuming the Eldar Player Jinks
-1.65 Penetrating with +2 modifier
-Also more than a half chance to blow up the vehicle with 5 melta guns. This is pretty standard with any AV Tank in the whole game.


The Wave Serpents Survivability isnt better than anything else in the game. Imperium Gets Smoke, which is the same as Jink. Stormraven gets Ceramite Plating which is better. We dont even have access to an AV13+ Vehicle. Tons of tanks out there have Jink not to mention all fliers and the Eldar's codex inability to gain air superiority along with 0 Tanks with the SkyFire Special Rule.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Wave Serpents are fine....you hear complaints of low caliber players. You can assault them and kill them with almost anything. People who complain are bad and have 1850 lists with like two anti tank guns.

Centurions have split fire...re rollable...grav cannons las cannons or missile launchers....and powerfists in close combat....a 2+ save and invul save. If you want to complain complain about that.

Necrons also have very comperable shooting with AV13...

Its not an issue people are just bad at this game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lobukia wrote:
Either remove its ability to shoot, or shooting it removes the shield.

I'd be behind either of those.

Thats currently how it works rofl

Cents don't have invulnerables, they have to buy split fire, grav, lascannons, they do not come stock with powerfists nor tank hunter. If you are going to make claims it helps when they are true if you want to be taken seriosuly. They also cost 60 ponts a model base, so they are literally 2 models per serpent. I mean seriously, where did you pull this from?

Also your signature isn't very... helpful to your cause

28-9-1 In Tournaments As Eldar.
Maintained a 75% Win Ratio As Eldar in 5th Edition GT's.

Hey guys I found morgoths cousin. Also I'm very surprised morgoths isn't here yet.

I really like the idea of just giving it a 5+ invulnerable save like the dark eldar one.

SirDonlad wrote:
sorry, I'm an engineer and 'replicate' means to make an exact copy of something within a given tolerance and 'same amount of same shots' suggests an identical set of shots is to be produced. which is why i say they are the same. the word 'replicate' adds the inference that there might be some degree of accepted difference, but I've got to be a stickler and note that 40k/30k rules only deal in polynomials.

I disagree here man,

If a company comes to you and says "I need you to replicate the results" you can have a different machine with different components and mechanisms, but as long as it Performs the same the results are replicated.

My Argument is not that other armies have a 120 point platform that does the exact same thing, my point is that other armies for the same point value can do similar results at killing tanks or infantry. The Wave Serpent per point is not any more efficient than anything in any other Codex.

 Smitty0305 wrote:

SirDonlad wrote:
sorry, I'm an engineer and 'replicate' means to make an exact copy of something within a given tolerance and 'same amount of same shots' suggests an identical set of shots is to be produced. which is why i say they are the same. the word 'replicate' adds the inference that there might be some degree of accepted difference, but I've got to be a stickler and note that 40k/30k rules only deal in polynomials.

I disagree here man,

If a company comes to you and says "I need you to replicate the results" you can have a different machine with different components and mechanisms, but as long as it Performs the same the results are replicated.

My Argument is not that other armies have a 120 point platform that does the exact same thing, my point is that other armies for the same point value can do similar results at killing tanks or infantry. The Wave Serpent per point is not any more efficient than anything in any other Codex.

Hmmm yes, ladies and gentlemen we have someone who is either stoned/drunk/something I'm allowed to say on this forum. Now please produce this example, now.

 Mr Morden wrote:

I personally dont see how thats overpowered for a main battle tank.

Which is exactly what its NOT supoposed to be - its a transport FFS

So it does this every turn - and is far more effective against enemy DT's - as you well know.

Razorbacks with Assault Cannons / or LasPlas compared to the Eldar on a point value is very close.

Raiders/Venoms are cheaper, comparing venom wound output is almost the same.

They also suffer from 2 less AV, far less range, no ignore cover... the list goes on. You are grasping knowingly at points that can be countered, so we're gonna have to conclude you're just being deliberately obtuse - I hope.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:

SirDonlad wrote:
sorry, I'm an engineer and 'replicate' means to make an exact copy of something within a given tolerance and 'same amount of same shots' suggests an identical set of shots is to be produced. which is why i say they are the same. the word 'replicate' adds the inference that there might be some degree of accepted difference, but I've got to be a stickler and note that 40k/30k rules only deal in polynomials.

I disagree here man,

If a company comes to you and says "I need you to replicate the results" you can have a different machine with different components and mechanisms, but as long as it Performs the same the results are replicated.

My Argument is not that other armies have a 120 point platform that does the exact same thing, my point is that other armies for the same point value can do similar results at killing tanks or infantry. The Wave Serpent per point is not any more efficient than anything in any other Codex.

Hmmm yes, ladies and gentlemen we have someone who is either stoned/drunk/something I'm allowed to say on this forum. Now please produce this example, now.

Venom has 8 Shots
-5.28 Hit
-2.64 Wound
-0.871 Marines are Dead

A Wave Serpent with a scatter costs 120
A Venom with Double Splinter Costs 65 Points

A Venom is doing 0.13 Wounds Per Point
A Wave Serpent is doing 0.15 Woulds Per Point

A Venom is more effective at killing Monstrous Creatures. A squad of 2 Venoms has 4 hullpoints instead of 3. How is this overpowered?

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Lets take a minute and actually look at the Math

Wave Serpent
-Scatter Laser, 4 TL BS4 Str6 Shots.
-Shield, D6+1 Str7 Shots, Pinning, Ignore Cover
-Shuriken Cannon (24" Range which is in enemy assault range, If you move 12 it snap fires. Most times you need to move to capture maelstroms and move from threats. Alot of Eldar players do not bring this).

A scatter laser has a 66.66% Chance to hit, so you have 2.64 Shots hit. 0.66*1.46 adds around 0.891 more shots. So your going to have around 3.51 of your scatter laser shots hitting.

A Serpent Shield will average 3.5 shots per game. They will be twin linked so you will get 2.31+0.785 = 3.09 Shots.

So an average wave serpent is going to get 3.51+3.09 hits per player turn or 6.6 hits per player turn. Of this you need a 2+ to would most infantry, so your going to get 6.6 * 0.833 or 5.478 wounds. Of the those a space marine is going to save 66% of them so 1.8 Space Marine a turn will die. If you have 5 of these your going to on average kill 9 Space Marines a turn.....so your taking out around 135 Points with an Investment of 600 points.

Wave Serpent
-Total of 6.59 Shots hitting per game, causing 5.478 wounds on MEQ T4, or killing around 1.8 Marines per Turn.

I personally dont see how thats overpowered for a main battle tank.

Your math is a bit off.
Scatter Lasers will generate 3.556 hits. Shield will average 4.5 shots per turn, for another 4 hits. Of this you need (against SM no difference between the two), 2+ to Wound, so 7.556 hits becomes 6.297 Wounds. Of these a SM will save 66% of them so 2.0989 Marines dead per turn. Overpowered for a MBT? No. However the Serpent is not a Main Battle Tank. It is a transport.

 Happyjew wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Lets take a minute and actually look at the Math

Wave Serpent
-Scatter Laser, 4 TL BS4 Str6 Shots.
-Shield, D6+1 Str7 Shots, Pinning, Ignore Cover
-Shuriken Cannon (24" Range which is in enemy assault range, If you move 12 it snap fires. Most times you need to move to capture maelstroms and move from threats. Alot of Eldar players do not bring this).

A scatter laser has a 66.66% Chance to hit, so you have 2.64 Shots hit. 0.66*1.46 adds around 0.891 more shots. So your going to have around 3.51 of your scatter laser shots hitting.

A Serpent Shield will average 3.5 shots per game. They will be twin linked so you will get 2.31+0.785 = 3.09 Shots.

So an average wave serpent is going to get 3.51+3.09 hits per player turn or 6.6 hits per player turn. Of this you need a 2+ to would most infantry, so your going to get 6.6 * 0.833 or 5.478 wounds. Of the those a space marine is going to save 66% of them so 1.8 Space Marine a turn will die. If you have 5 of these your going to on average kill 9 Space Marines a turn.....so your taking out around 135 Points with an Investment of 600 points.

Wave Serpent
-Total of 6.59 Shots hitting per game, causing 5.478 wounds on MEQ T4, or killing around 1.8 Marines per Turn.

I personally dont see how thats overpowered for a main battle tank.

Your math is a bit off.
Scatter Lasers will generate 3.556 hits. Shield will average 4.5 shots per turn, for another 4 hits. Of this you need (against SM no difference between the two), 2+ to Wound, so 7.556 hits becomes 6.297 Wounds. Of these a SM will save 66% of them so 2.0989 Marines dead per turn. Overpowered for a MBT? No. However the Serpent is not a Main Battle Tank. It is a transport.

Its a 120 point model that Mathematically on Average can kill around 2 Space Marines a turn....That isnt Overpowered.

I compared it to the effectiveness of a Venom which is a dedicated Transport as well, There so close it isnt funny.

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Lets take a minute and actually look at the Math

Wave Serpent
-Scatter Laser, 4 TL BS4 Str6 Shots.
-Shield, D6+1 Str7 Shots, Pinning, Ignore Cover
-Shuriken Cannon (24" Range which is in enemy assault range, If you move 12 it snap fires. Most times you need to move to capture maelstroms and move from threats. Alot of Eldar players do not bring this).

A scatter laser has a 66.66% Chance to hit, so you have 2.64 Shots hit. 0.66*1.46 adds around 0.891 more shots. So your going to have around 3.51 of your scatter laser shots hitting.

A Serpent Shield will average 3.5 shots per game. They will be twin linked so you will get 2.31+0.785 = 3.09 Shots.

So an average wave serpent is going to get 3.51+3.09 hits per player turn or 6.6 hits per player turn. Of this you need a 2+ to would most infantry, so your going to get 6.6 * 0.833 or 5.478 wounds. Of the those a space marine is going to save 66% of them so 1.8 Space Marine a turn will die. If you have 5 of these your going to on average kill 9 Space Marines a turn.....so your taking out around 135 Points with an Investment of 600 points.

Wave Serpent
-Total of 6.59 Shots hitting per game, causing 5.478 wounds on MEQ T4, or killing around 1.8 Marines per Turn.

I personally dont see how thats overpowered for a main battle tank.

Your math is a bit off.
Scatter Lasers will generate 3.556 hits. Shield will average 4.5 shots per turn, for another 4 hits. Of this you need (against SM no difference between the two), 2+ to Wound, so 7.556 hits becomes 6.297 Wounds. Of these a SM will save 66% of them so 2.0989 Marines dead per turn. Overpowered for a MBT? No. However the Serpent is not a Main Battle Tank. It is a transport.

Its a 120 point model that Mathematically on Average can kill around 2 Space Marines a turn....That isnt Overpowered.

I compared it to the effectiveness of a Venom which is a dedicated Transport as well, There so close it isnt funny.

Oh hey you misspelled they're.

Why are you just using it to kill marines...?

Why don't you see how effective it is at taking out enemy transports, for example?

Feel free to keep comparing it to the venom in this regard.

Hell, pit a WS against 2 venom and see which comes out on top.

 vipoid wrote:
Why are you just using it to kill marines...?

Why don't you see how effective it is at taking out enemy transports, for example?

Feel free to keep comparing it to the venom in this regard.

Hell, pit a WS against 2 venom and see which comes out on top.

Or I could compare a Wave Serpents / Ravagers effectiveness against killing a land raider. A ravager is 125 points with 3 dark lances, a Wave Serpent is 120.

The Wave Serpent cant even hurt the Land Raider lol.

 Smitty0305 wrote:
my point is that other armies for the same point value can do similar results at killing tanks or infantry.

i think that a large portion of the rage is just about how effectively it does both and more.

i've had one of these take down my flyers, i've had units of thallax (T5 W3) lose three guys in a single round of shooting from one and then run away. - that isn't common.
i've even had one go round the side of my mechanicum LR and blow it up.
all these happened in one round of shooting from one!

we can all take units which can do these roles but i'm not aware of another unit which can do all of the roles anywhere near as well. it's got this perfect balance of weapon strengths and rules to be able to cover just about any situation and survive - my mate with eldar would argue that his 'superior race' will have perfected their vehicles over the millennia so 'of course it should be able to do it all' (potentially one of the few times that the fluff matches the rules).

however it is quite aggravating that the points cost of the units we have to deal with them are quite high. (apart from legion sicarian battletank of course)
the closest unit i have to it is the imperial avenger strike fighter which starts at 150pts and ends up at about 180pts with 2 single lascannon an avenger bolt cannon (S6 AP3 heavy 7) with tank hunters at BS3 (cause the serp is a skimmer). - sounds good until you start doing dice rolls. the WS survives 9/10 times and then blows it up in return.

i see it and the wraithknight as matt ward's last hurrah before leaving - i wouldn't have bet that his d#*kprints look like spirit stones but we can all make mistakes..

um, on your replicated results argument - similarly, if the company instead asks - "i need you to produce a set of data from a machine which matches this data from a different machine in both quantity and outcome" it still means the same thing.

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Every army in the game can replicate 7 mid strength shots with multiple units. People who complain about serpents are bad low tier players who play static bad army lists.

Stop being bad....open ur codex....and learn to play your army.

The biggest weakness is close combat. Any squad with anything can kill them in close combat. If you force them to move 12+ they stop shooting and problem solved.

Troll detected.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smitty0305 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Why are you just using it to kill marines...?

Why don't you see how effective it is at taking out enemy transports, for example?

Feel free to keep comparing it to the venom in this regard.

Hell, pit a WS against 2 venom and see which comes out on top.

Or I could compare a Wave Serpents / Ravagers effectiveness against killing a land raider. A ravager is 125 points with 3 dark lances, a Wave Serpent is 120.

The Wave Serpent cant even hurt the Land Raider lol.

Too bad land raiders are terrible.

I posted my thoughts on the topic here

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/How_Overpowered_is_the_Wave_Serpent

Here is a metaphor for what you are doing

1 frag grenade explodes next to a soldier, he is probably dead.
1 c4 goes off next to a soldier he is definitely dead.

What you are saying is that obviously they are equal in all respects, and since the grenade is cheaper is obviously the superior weapon is all situations.

/metaphor

If you give me your address I can mail some reading material to you that should help you come to realize your fallacies http://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Logic-Puzzles-Muriel-Mandell/dp/080694756X

 Quickjager wrote:
Here is a metaphor for what you are doing

1 frag grenade explodes next to a soldier, he is probably dead.
1 c4 goes off next to a soldier he is definitely dead.

What you are saying is that obviously they are equal in all respects, and since the grenade is cheaper is obviously the superior weapon is all situations.

/metaphor

If you give me your address I can mail some reading material to you that should help you come to realize your fallacies http://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Logic-Puzzles-Muriel-Mandell/dp/080694756X

Send me the Hardback One, I dont like paperback.

Mmmmm, you don't mind used? The new one is going for about five hundred currently.

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Lets take a minute and actually look at the Math

Wave Serpent
-Scatter Laser, 4 TL BS4 Str6 Shots.
-Shield, D6+1 Str7 Shots, Pinning, Ignore Cover
-Shuriken Cannon (24" Range which is in enemy assault range, If you move 12 it snap fires. Most times you need to move to capture maelstroms and move from threats. Alot of Eldar players do not bring this).

A scatter laser has a 66.66% Chance to hit, so you have 2.64 Shots hit. 0.66*1.46 adds around 0.891 more shots. So your going to have around 3.51 of your scatter laser shots hitting.

A Serpent Shield will average 3.5 shots per game. They will be twin linked so you will get 2.31+0.785 = 3.09 Shots.

So an average wave serpent is going to get 3.51+3.09 hits per player turn or 6.6 hits per player turn. Of this you need a 2+ to would most infantry, so your going to get 6.6 * 0.833 or 5.478 wounds. Of the those a space marine is going to save 66% of them so 1.8 Space Marine a turn will die. If you have 5 of these your going to on average kill 9 Space Marines a turn.....so your taking out around 135 Points with an Investment of 600 points.

Wave Serpent
-Total of 6.59 Shots hitting per game, causing 5.478 wounds on MEQ T4, or killing around 1.8 Marines per Turn.

I personally dont see how thats overpowered for a main battle tank.

Couple things.

First, math is off.

Your average number of hits from the Scaterlaser should be as follows.

4 shots X (2x3)=2.67 before twin linked

Rerolls ((1/3)*(4 shots X (2x3)))=0.888

Total average number of hits=2.667+0.888=3.556

Now we get the shield

The average here should be 4.5, not 3.5 (average on a D6 is 3.5, D6+1 is 4.5)

So we do the same calculation as above


4.5 shots X (2x3)=3 before twin linked

Rerolls ((1/3)*(4.5 shots X (2x3)))=1

Total average number of hits=3+1=4 average hits


So we've got a total of 7.55 average hits. Against T4 3+sv infantry (Marines) we get 2.1 dead per turn.

For reference, lets take an *ACTUAL* battle tank, a Leman Russ Exterminator with 3 heavy bolters costing 150pts against the same unit

4 autocannon shots *(1/2)=2 hits

Twin Linked rerolls

((1/2)*4 autocannon shots *(1/2))=1 hit

Total Autocannon hits=3

Then we add the 3 heavy bolters

9*(1/2)=4.5 hits

On average, against that same T4 3+sv infantry unit=1.8333

So a relatively barebones 120pt Wave Serpent dedicated transport is putting out more hurt on a T4 3+sv unit than a 150pt Leman Russ Exterminator.

This is also discounting any Shuriken Catapults or Shuriken Cannons the Wave Serpent may also have.

If we add in a Shuriken Cannon, we get 3.28 average dead marines, an 80%% increase over that Leman Russ Exterminator, for fewer points.





Second, it's NOT a Main Battle Tank, it's *not* a Fire Prism, it's a transport.

(EDIT: lol messed up my math too and understated the Serpent first go around!)

I'm sorry, I know I'm rehashing an old point here, but if a Venom is point-for-point equivalent to a Wave Serpent...when killing Marines...and that means they're equivalent in spite of the Wave Serpent's superior durability, transport capacity, range, and ability to kill anything else...

Does that mean I should be paying about twenty points per Terminator because he's only about half again as good as a Tactical Marine at killing Space Marines?

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
Lets take a minute and actually look at the Math

Wave Serpent
-Scatter Laser, 4 TL BS4 Str6 Shots.
-Shield, D6+1 Str7 Shots, Pinning, Ignore Cover
-Shuriken Cannon (24" Range which is in enemy assault range, If you move 12 it snap fires. Most times you need to move to capture maelstroms and move from threats. Alot of Eldar players do not bring this).

A scatter laser has a 66.66% Chance to hit, so you have 2.64 Shots hit. 0.66*1.46 adds around 0.891 more shots. So your going to have around 3.51 of your scatter laser shots hitting.

A Serpent Shield will average 3.5 shots per game. They will be twin linked so you will get 2.31+0.785 = 3.09 Shots.

So an average wave serpent is going to get 3.51+3.09 hits per player turn or 6.6 hits per player turn. Of this you need a 2+ to would most infantry, so your going to get 6.6 * 0.833 or 5.478 wounds. Of the those a space marine is going to save 66% of them so 1.8 Space Marine a turn will die. If you have 5 of these your going to on average kill 9 Space Marines a turn.....so your taking out around 135 Points with an Investment of 600 points.

Wave Serpent
-Total of 6.59 Shots hitting per game, causing 5.478 wounds on MEQ T4, or killing around 1.8 Marines per Turn.

I personally dont see how thats overpowered for a main battle tank.

Couple things.

First, math is off.

Your average number of hits from the Scaterlaser should be as follows.

4 shots X (2x3)=2.67 before twin linked

Rerolls ((1/3)*(4 shots X (2x3)))=0.888

Total average number of hits=2.667+0.888=3.556

Now we get the shield

The average here should be 4.5, not 3.5 (average on a D6 is 3.5, D6+1 is 4.5)

So we do the same calculation as above


4.5 shots X (2x3)=3 before twin linked

Rerolls ((1/3)*(4.5 shots X (2x3)))=1

Total average number of hits=3+1=4 average hits


So we've got a total of 7.55 average hits. Against T4 3+sv infantry (Marines) we get 2.1 dead per turn.

For reference, lets take an *ACTUAL* battle tank, a Leman Russ Exterminator with 3 heavy bolters costing 150pts against the same unit

4 autocannon shots *(1/2)=2 hits

Twin Linked rerolls

((1/2)*4 autocannon shots *(1/2))=1 hit

Total Autocannon hits=3

Then we add the 3 heavy bolters

9*(1/2)=4.5 hits

On average, against that same T4 3+sv infantry unit=1.8333

So a relatively barebones 120pt Wave Serpent dedicated transport is putting out more hurt on a T4 3+sv unit than a 150pt Leman Russ Exterminator.

This is also discounting any Shuriken Catapults or Shuriken Cannons the Wave Serpent may also have.

If we add in a Shuriken Cannon, we get 3.28 average dead marines, an 80%% increase over that Leman Russ Exterminator, for fewer points.





Second, it's NOT a Main Battle Tank, it's *not* a Fire Prism, it's a transport.

(EDIT: lol messed up my math too and understated the Serpent first go around!)

Interesting point that the Wave Serpent is about 14% more effective at killing Infantry than that unit.

The Leman Russ gets armor 13 which is notable. Im not an Expert on Imperial Guard, but I think you can bring pask to make them more effective. I know you can also do orders from HQ's which make the tank more effective. You didnt take any tertiary support into account when looking at this.

I also think that the Leman Russ Exterminator is one of the worse variants, and generally one of the worse things in the IG Codex. There other things in the IG Codex that would be much better to compare. I would probably more want to see a comparison against an IG Heavy Weapon Autocannon team with Orders that Twink Link the Weapons.

Is one of the better things in the Eldar Codex 14% better than one of the below average things in the IG codex? Sure. Is that game breaking? In my opinion no.




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 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm sorry, I know I'm rehashing an old point here, but if a Venom is point-for-point equivalent to a Wave Serpent...when killing Marines...and that means they're equivalent in spite of the Wave Serpent's superior durability, transport capacity, range, and ability to kill anything else...

Does that mean I should be paying about twenty points per Terminator because he's only about half again as good as a Tactical Marine at killing Space Marines?

Again, you need to compare all of those statistics point by point.

The Dark Eldar Transport can have two of them for every serpent. Their Transport Size is almost an advantage because having Two squads of 5 Trueborn is much better than 1 Squad of 10.

The Range I think is comperable, as a Scatter Laser's range is 36" so shooting the Wave Serpent out of 36" range greatly reduces its ability to do damage.

As far as survivability the Wave Serpent is somewhat more survivable, although for every serpent you have on the Board a Dark Eldar can have two Venoms. Comparing the Durability of Two Venoms versus One Wave Serpent is difficult as its very situation dependent. Against Melta's and str9/10 there would be little difference....against Str 5-6-7 you would see the Wave Serpent is much more survivable. Its hard to quantify it unless you look at very specific examples.

Pask is a Tank Commander that's 70pts on top, is an HQ unit, and you *have* to take in a squadron, meaning usually that's a 400pt unit. Tanks can also only use Tank Commander Orders, which are far more limited than the normal Orders, which have to go off on an Ld9 test, one of which simply allows them to move Flat Out despite being Heavy, one allows them to Split Fire, and one allows them to pop smoke and fire. This is only available to a Tank Commander squadron (again, probably running ~400ish points at the minimum 2 unit size).

While the Russ does have better armor, being able to jink for a 4+ on demand (3+ with Holofields), on top of reducing Pens to Glances on a 2+ if you don't fire the shield, gives the Wave Serpent a tremendous amount of resiliency as well.

A dedicated transport having both that kind of firepower, and the potential resiliency, for *fewer* points and in larger availability than such a heavy battle tank, is a problem, and its 14% better at its *most basic*

With a scatterlaser, Shuriken Cannon, and Holofields, its still cheaper than that Leman Russ Exterminator, and in optimal range is putting out *far* more hurt

Even more important, it's significantly more capable against light armor. Against an AV11 target for example (like a Razorback for example), a kitted Wave Serpent with cannon is removing an average of 4 HP's from an AV11 vehicle (2 of which ignore cover), while if we give the Leman Russ Exterminator a Lascannon, increasing its cost to 160pts, its only removing an average of 2.58 (none of which ignore cover)

If the Wave Serpent were a heavy support battle tank with no transport capacity, people wouldn't have the same issues with it. But with that kind of potential firepower, and that kind of resiliency and surety of cargo delivery, for its relatively low points cost, and the the fact that it's available in just about every FoC slot to any infantry unit the Eldar have, that makes it a problem.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Pask is a Tank Commander that's 70pts on top, is an HQ unit, and you *have* to take in a squadron, meaning usually that's a 400pt unit. Tanks can also only use Tank Commander Orders, which are far more limited than the normal Orders, which have to go off on an Ld9 test, one of which simply allows them to move Flat Out despite being Heavy, one allows them to Split Fire, and one allows them to pop smoke and fire. This is only available to a Tank Commander squadron (again, probably running ~400ish points at the minimum 2 unit size).

While the Russ does have better armor, being able to jink for a 4+ on demand (3+ with Holofields), on top of reducing Pens to Glances on a 2+ if you don't fire the shield, gives the Wave Serpent a tremendous amount of resiliency as well.

A dedicated transport having both that kind of firepower, and the potential resiliency, for *fewer* points and in larger availability than such a heavy battle tank, is a problem, and its 14% better at its *most basic*

With a scatterlaser, Shuriken Cannon, and Holofields, its still cheaper than that Leman Russ Exterminator, and in optimal range is putting out *far* more hurt

Even more important, it's significantly more capable against light armor. Against an AV11 target for example (like a Razorback for example), a kitted Wave Serpent with cannon is removing an average of 4 HP's from an AV11 vehicle (2 of which ignore cover), while if we give the Leman Russ Exterminator a Lascannon, increasing its cost to 160pts, its only removing an average of 2.58 (none of which ignore cover)

If the Wave Serpent were a heavy support battle tank with no transport capacity, people wouldn't have the same issues with it. But with that kind of potential firepower, and that kind of resiliency and surety of cargo delivery, for its relatively low points cost, and the the fact that it's available in just about every FoC slot to any infantry unit the Eldar have, that makes it a problem.

Compare it against something in the IG Codex that isnt terribad.

I compared it against a decent unit with similar weapons profiles.

Simply suggesting to compare it against something "not terribad" is a somewhat silly response, as it assumes the unit we're talking about is terribad (it isn't) as opposed to the Wave Serpent being hilariously overcapable.

What would you compare it against? Look for the most broken thing and compare it against that? Well, I'm up for suggestions as to what would be a good comparison for the Wave Serpent.

Should we compare it to the Imperial Guard's direct equivalent, the Chimera? Because that's only going to make the Wave Serpent look even more overpowered than the Leman Russ Exterminator comparison.

SirDonlad wrote:
it's got this perfect balance of weapon strengths and rules to be able to cover just about any situation and survive - my mate with eldar would argue that his 'superior race' will have perfected their vehicles over the millennia so 'of course it should be able to do it all' (potentially one of the few times that the fluff matches the rules).

Well, you know, why not? That's the exact same argument I see from Space Marine players on this very forum, basically. "Bolters are underpowered, they should be able to literally do it all because fluff and reasons.", "The basic Tactical Marine is underpowered, they should be able to do literally anything and do it as well as (or better than) the specialists of other races because fluff and reasons.", etc. We've had people giving bolters strength and AP buffs, more shots, and a huge list of special rules to "accurately" represent the frankly slowed Space Marine fluff on the tabletop, taking the bolter from being the baseline (as half the armies in the game use it as their basic gun) to the most OP basic troop gun in the game that can kill tanks and hordes of infantry alike, and arguing that this would finally achieve "balance" as a tactical squad could finally take on an entire army by it's lonesome, just like the examples we see in the fluff and BL novels.

So, what, it's okay for Space Marines to get significant buffs to make them match the fluff, and thus become nearly unstoppable on the table, but no other army should have their rules buffed to match their fluff?

SirDonlad wrote:
i see it and the wraithknight as matt ward's last hurrah before leaving - i wouldn't have bet that his d#*kprints look like spirit stones but we can all make mistakes..

Are you absolutely sure Mat Ward is to blame?

Codex: Eldar, 6th edition, Page 2: "Written by: Phil Kelly and Adam Troke."

I can understand why some people weren't fond of Ward, but please, stop acting like he was responsible for literally everything you dislike about modern 40k.

Guys, If we're to only use how many marines a given unit kills as a way to compare it to a fast transport skimmer with special shielding and other unique goodies, we're playing into this troll's hands. This doesn't need to go any further.

Time is better spent watching CSI:Bum-Freakin-Egypt than talking about how OP the Wave Serpent is for it's point cost.

Yeah...this is at least my 3rd reply to this thread. I know...I know...

Well, in some ways it makes sense. Marines are by far the most common army, and make up about half the factions in the game, so it stands to reason that the "value" of most units would be measured based on how many Marines they can kill per turn. And they usually are.

It's arguable whether that applies to a wave serpent or not, though...or I guess most transports.

Going to call the points of comparison into question. Nobody is actually comparing the Wave Serpent to anything comparable; a Wave Serpent is a mobile frontline APC, we're comparing it to Russes (MBTs), Sicarians (Also MBTs), Venoms (Light cav/flanking transport), Ravagers (By some definition MBTs), and now autocannon teams (artillery)?

Let's make a list of things that fit into comparable roles:

Dark Eldar: Raider
Space Marines & Variants: Razorback
Sisters of Battle: Immolator
Tau: Devilfish
Guard: Chimeras, Taurox Prime, (arguably, depends on list variants) Valkyries
Orks: Battlewaggon

Now let's go through them one by one:

Raider vs. Wave Serpent
Price: Raider, about two thirds the cost naked, less after the inevitable upgrades on the Wave Serpent.
Speed: Toss-up. Both are Fast Skimmers with the option for extra mobility upgrades on top of that, going to call this one a tie.
Firepower vs. Light Infantry: Wave Serpent. The Raider can't put out anywhere near the Wave Serpent's firepower.
Firepower vs. Heavy Infantry: Wave Serpent. Decent anti-Sv3+ from the Disruptor, but the Wave Serpent's got the Strength and the volume to utterly overwhelm it, even points-adjusted.
Firepower vs. Light Vehicles: Wave Serpent again. Anything AV 12 and under is up and gone.
Firepower vs. Heavy Vehicles: Narrow again but calling it for the Wave Serpent on the grounds of a twin-linked Bright Lance beating a Dark Lance.
Durability: Wave Serpent. 12/12/10 and 3+ Jink beats 10/10/10, Open-Topped, and 5+ Inv by a large margin.
Transport Utility: Raider. Wave Serpent can carry two more guys but Open Topped lets the Raider's passengers contribute to the game a lot better.
Points-Adjusted: One Wave Serpent is not double the cost of a Raider so I can't actually flip any of these scores; if the Wave Serpent was double the cost of a Raider I'd at least be able to call the Raider better at killing heavy vehicles.
Synergy Bonus: Extra points to the Raider for Deep Strike and Splinter Racks, but it's not enough to tip the final score.
Final Score: Wave Serpent, hands down.

Razorback vs. Wave Serpent
Price: Razorback, by a lot.
Speed: Wave Serpent. You must be joking.
Firepower vs. Light Infantry: It's actually a bit of a toss-up here, with the heavy flamer in the mix. The Wave Serpent takes this one narrowly on the grounds of range and the ease with which spreading out hard-counters the flamer template.
Firepower vs. Heavy Infantry: Funnily enough the Heavy Flamer is actually slightly better at Wounding Marines than the Wave Serpent's excess of S6 firepower. Still going to the Wave Serpent, unfortunately, it's got the range and nobody's going to be clustered enough for you to hit eight models with one flamer template.
Firepower vs. Light Vehicles: Wave Serpent again, on volume. The Razorback's twin-linked autocannon is pretty murderous but a Serpent Shield alone out-hull-points it quickly.
Firepower vs. Heavy Vehicles: Wave Serpent. A twin-linked Bright Lance beats a twin-linked Lascannon against AV14 and is identical against AV13.
Durability: Wave Serpent. Better armour and Jink.
Transport Utility: Wave Serpent. Twice as many models.
Price-Adjusted: The Razorback actually comes out a lot better at killing infantry here and close to comparable at transport and killing light vehicles. The Wave Serpent retains the lead on its other strengths.
Synergy Bonus: No.
Final Score: Wave Serpent, easily.

Immolator vs. Wave Serpent
Mostly identical to the Razorback's score but the Immolator actually wins vs. heavy vehicles from the multi-melta option. It's not enough to tip the score, and the Wave Serpent takes the set.

Devilfish vs. Wave Serpent
Price: Devilfish.
Speed: Wave Serpent. Both are Skimmers, but the Wave Serpent is a Fast Skimmer.
Firepower vs. Light Infantry: This one's actually really close if you're shooting at T3 with eight S5 shots coming off the Devilfish versus ten S6-7 shots coming off the Wave Serpent, especially given that the Serpent Shield shots don't ignore 5+ saves. Going to have to call this one a tie.
Firepower vs. Heavy Infantry: Goes back to the Wave Serpent here on volume and superior Strength.
Firepower vs. Light Vehicles: The Devilfish is slightly better at fighting AV10 Skimmers because you can't Jink against SMS shots, but since this category also involves AV11 and AV12 (both of which higher Strength matters more for) and non-Skimmers the Wave Serpent wins this one too.
Firepower vs. Heavy Vehicles: Wave Serpent. The Devilfish can get single-use long-ranged Seeker Missiles, but they can't pen AV14 and they're not AP2.
Durability: Actually pretty close here, a Devilfish with its Disruption Pods has the same Jink as a Wave Serpent. The Wave Serpent wins this one narrowly on +1 side armour and the shield making it harder to one-shot it.
Transport Utility: Wave Serpent. Identical transport capacity but the Wave Serpent has much more useful things to put there.
Price Adjusted: The prices are close enough that it won't make much of a difference, this actually may be enough to tip the durability score into a tie, though.
Synergy Bonus: Devilfish, by a long shot, from Markerlights.
Final Score: Wave Serpent.

Chimera vs. Wave Serpent
Price: Chimera
Speed: Wave Serpent
Firepower vs. Light Infantry: Chimera. Two heavy flamers have much better odds of getting enough hits to negate the Wave Serpent's volume and it gets around the tank's BS. You have to get a lot closer but you can kill a lot more.
Firepower vs. Heavy Infantry: Weirdly enough this depends on squad size. If you're fighting a five-man Marine squad the heavy flamers physically can't get enough hits to overcome the Wave Serpent's volume advantage. Most of the time this one goes to the Chimera, though.
Firepower vs. Light Vehicles: Wave Serpent. The Chimera has fewer shots, lower Strength, worse BS, and no twin-link.
Firepower vs. Heavy Vehicles: Wave Serpent. The Chimera can't actually fight them.
Durability: Wave Serpent. The Chimera has 10 side and can't jink.
Transport Utility: Chimera. Fire points and it can run around with more points-efficient shooty squads inside.
Price Adjusted: Doesn't flip the balance anywhere.
Synergy Bonus: Tank Orders can't affect transports.
Final Score: Wave Serpent, completely and totally.

Taurox Prime vs. Wave Serpent
Price: Taurox
Speed: Wave Serpent
Firepower vs. Light Infantry: The Taurox Prime is pretty dependent on clustering; it'd be better if if could reliably get six models under a small blast but that's not likely.
Firepower vs. Heavy Infantry: Wave Serpent, on volume. Ten S4 shots or three AP3 volley gun shots aren't enough to tip the balance on this one, the Taurox may have more raw shots but the Strength isn't there.
Firepower vs. Light Vehicles: The Cyclone launcher actually makes this one pretty close but the Wave Serpent still wins on volume here.
Firepower vs. Heavy Vehicles: A Bright Lance beats a Cyclone launcher, the Wave Serpent wins this one.
Durability: Wave Serpent. You must be joking.
Transport Utility: Taurox, it's got Fire Points.
Price Adjusted: Doesn't change much, firepower vs. vehicles might get pushed over but everything else remains the same.
Synergy Bonus: Nope.
Final Score: Wave Serpent.

Valkyrie
Price: Wave Serpent. Load down the Valkyrie with guns and it gets pricey fast.
Speed: Valkyrie. It is a Flyer, after all.
Firepower vs. Light Infantry: Valkyrie. Two Large Blasts can tear a chunk out of almost anything.
Firepower vs. Heavy Infantry: Heavily dependent on clustering here, but the Wave Serpent is probably going to take this one on Strength since the Valkyrie would need about eighteen hits between the blasts to beat it.
Firepower vs. Light Vehicles: Wave Serpent, on volume.
Firepower vs. Heavy Vehicles: Wave Serpent, on volume.
Durability: This one's hard to call. Armour values are identical, the Wave Serpent has better Jink and can actually hide in cover/have LoS blocked, but the Valkyrie is a Flyer. Going to call it a tie for now.
Transport Utility: Valkyrie, insanely so. With Imperial allies you can transport a much broader range of things and with Grav-Chute Insertion you can get them where you want them much faster.
Price Adjusted: Not much changes, they're actually fairly close in price.
Synergy Bonus: Nope
Final Score: I actually had to go through and count on this one. I'm going to call it a tie for now.

Battlewaggon vs. Wave Serpent
Price: Wave Serpent. The Battlewaggon is many things but cheap is not one of them.
Speed: Wave Serpent. Skimmer type and mobility upgrades.
Firepower vs. Light Infantry: Battlewaggon. A Large Blast and a hell of a lot of Big Shootaz, even with Orky BS.
Firepower vs. Heavy Infantry: This one might actually go to the Battlewaggon. An AP3 Large Blast is pretty damn useful.
Firepower vs. Light Vehicles: Wave Serpent. The Battlewaggon can't put out the volume at S6-7.
Firepower vs. Heavy Vehicles: Five BS2 S8 shots, one of which is Ordnance, or a twin-linked BS4 S8 Lance shot? The math is telling me the Wave Serpent wins this one, weirdly enough.
Durability: The Battlewaggon may have AV14 front and an extra Hull Point, but it's still 10 rear and has no Jink, I can't honestly award it Durability. Point to the Wave Serpent.
Transport Utility: Battlewaggon. Twenty Orks charging out of an open-topped transport? I don't care who or what you are, that's a threatening thing to deal with.
Price-Adjusted: Probably more points to the Wave Serpent here, simply because the Battlewaggon has to pay for its guns.
Synergy Bonus: Nope.
Final Score: Wave Serpent.

So there we have it. Point-by-point the Wave Serpent is the best frontline medium troop transport in the game, unless you include the Flyers in that list and then it's only tied.


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 Sidstyler wrote:

SirDonlad wrote:
it's got this perfect balance of weapon strengths and rules to be able to cover just about any situation and survive - my mate with eldar would argue that his 'superior race' will have perfected their vehicles over the millennia so 'of course it should be able to do it all' (potentially one of the few times that the fluff matches the rules).

Well, you know, why not? That's the exact same argument I see from Space Marine players on this very forum, basically. "Bolters are underpowered, they should be able to literally do it all because fluff and reasons.", "The basic Tactical Marine is underpowered, they should be able to do literally anything and do it as well as (or better than) the specialists of other races because fluff and reasons.", etc. We've had people giving bolters strength and AP buffs, more shots, and a huge list of special rules to "accurately" represent the frankly slowed Space Marine fluff on the tabletop, taking the bolter from being the baseline (as half the armies in the game use it as their basic gun) to the most OP basic troop gun in the game that can kill tanks and hordes of infantry alike, and arguing that this would finally achieve "balance" as a tactical squad could finally take on an entire army by it's lonesome, just like the examples we see in the fluff and BL novels.

So, what, it's okay for Space Marines to get significant buffs to make them match the fluff, and thus become nearly unstoppable on the table, but no other army should have their rules buffed to match their fluff?

SirDonlad wrote:
i see it and the wraithknight as matt ward's last hurrah before leaving - i wouldn't have bet that his d#*kprints look like spirit stones but we can all make mistakes..

Are you absolutely sure Mat Ward is to blame?

Codex: Eldar, 6th edition, Page 2: "Written by: Phil Kelly and Adam Troke."

I can understand why some people weren't fond of Ward, but please, stop acting like he was responsible for literally everything you dislike about modern 40k.

(For the record I suggest not using peoples' Movie Marines lists as your baseline expectation for what people think the game should be like)

@Smithy

Stop trolling. You run the cheese list from the OP dex. None of the actual top players with podcasts and blogs even argue that the WS is unbalanced. Your only way to justify the WS OP factor and smooth your fragile ego is to call it a MBT and then compare it to everyone's MBT heavies to make your point. And in doing so, you've made everyone else's. Your DT is a very competitive MBT against all but AV14 platforms (and as I'm sure you know, that's not a big hurdle in competitions). But it gains the huge advantage of being an extremely durable DT , takes up no additional slot while being a MBT. You further prove our point by saying "assault it". Yeah, because your high init, rending, extra movement, long ranged BS 4 dex with a broken MC that hides in cover is so easy to get into assault.

If even a fanatical WS apologist can only bring up our best points, prove them, and then only have rude bravado to try and spin the reality, I think the case is closed. WS = unbalanced easy button. And ToFs stats for 2014 back that up too.

Lobukia wrote:
Either remove its ability to shoot completely, or shooting it removes the shield permanently.

I'd be behind either of those.

Fixed for you. I know you understand it first time, but you're backed in a logic corner and making cheap shots.

 Sidstyler wrote:

Are you absolutely sure Mat Ward is to blame?

Codex: Eldar, 6th edition, Page 2: "Written by: Phil Kelly and Adam Troke."

I can understand why some people weren't fond of Ward, but please, stop acting like he was responsible for literally everything you dislike about modern 40k.

granted, but when I'm reading the rules and fluff for those units it feels like he wrote it (to me a least). yeah, I'm one of the hecklers of the ward - he had a flair for the dramatic.
you can see that in the 'shredded SoB look' the grey knights once sported and the little wooden box with a seal only seen on the golden throne...
he also liked creating new devastating units to center an army around - you can see that in his necron 'dex with the c'tan - and once one was like it, they all had to be buffed because nerfing a 'dex is like admitting you messed up.

i think the little bumps the eldar got, like BS4 gaurdians, pseudo-rending for all shuriken weaponry and laser lock felt like the improvement the eldar needed; but the wraithknight and the new wave serpent profile stick out like a sore thumb. to me at least - I'm not going mental; the dude that crawled out of my eye said so.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Snip

1+ Aaaaaall of the exalt.

 Smitty0305 wrote:

Or I could compare a Wave Serpents / Ravagers effectiveness against killing a land raider. A ravager is 125 points with 3 dark lances, a Wave Serpent is 120.

A few points:

1) So, as soon as I bring up something the WS obviously does far better than a Venom, you refuse the comparason and act like it's ludicrous - when, in fact, destroying transports is one of the things that makes WSs so powerful. And, not being able to hurt vehicles is a massive deficiency with the Venom's firepower. But, if it favours the WS I guess we're not allowed to compare it.

2) So, you've instead chosen to compare the WS to a dedicated tank, against the highest AV in the game. Why on Earth should the WS be better at killing the toughest armour in the game? Even the Ravager you bring up would have to fire at a Land Raider for half the game just to average a kill.

3) I should also mention that your dedicated transport has far better armour than my dedicated tank.

4) How about comparing the WS and Ravager at killing AV10/11/12 vehicles?

5) A minor point, but can't the WS buy a Brightlance? So, if you really are worried about killing land raiders with your dedicated transport, you do have an option for that.

Makumba wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Rhinos are nothing to sniff at, for 140 points you've got four Rhinos, that's 12 HB shots and 12 AV11 HP, four different targets, four explodes results.
With our Aspect Warriors so terrible without transports (and with transports arguably), those wouldn't be a bad thing.
They're excellent LOS blockers that move 18 inches a turn and can benefit from terrain cover saves much easier than Wave Serpents.

Summary is, people whine way too much about Wave Serpents, can't you take one year of two of Eldar dominance in one specific army format (CAD+Allies) like we've taken years of IoM abuse ?

rhinos don't have heavy bolters. it is easier to get cover when to get it all you have to do is move, and even if you somehow need actual terrain being able to fly over stuff makes it easier to position well. As domination goes. RT=eldar OP. 2ed=eldar OP. 3ed=eldar OP . 3.5/4ed=eldar OP. 5ed eldar=good till codex GK. 6th ed=eldar OP. 7th=eldar OP.

Sure looks like dominance of IoM armies.

I can't talk about 1-3 because I did not play them.

I know for sure that 4,5 and 6 before the new codex were not dominated by Eldar.


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 Vaktathi wrote:
Notice the bragging about wins with Eldar in his sig. Not hard to see why one would be touchy about Wave Serpents losing their status with such an attachement to win rates with Eldar like that shown so prominently. I'm sure Wave Serpents are a rather large factor in that

And that's what's wrong with you whiners.

Do you really think any one of us Eldar Mech players ever won a game by just showing our codex to the opponent ?

Do you really think it's that easy to win against a same skill opponent who plays a good army ?


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 Vaktathi wrote:
People do complain about the Annihilation Barge. That said, while Necrons are certainly powerful and have a couple units, like Annihilation Barges, that could use some toning down, Annihilation Barge spam isn't routinely landing top place at major events the way Serpent Spam armies are.

Additionally, the AB can't be taken in the same numbers as a Wave Serpent, has a *far* shorter range (24" compared with 60" on the Serpent Shield and 36" on Scatterlasers), doesn't ignore cover, can't be super scoring, and can't be made a practically unstoppable delivery system. A lot of S7 spam units in other armies have also gotten toned down of late. Rifleman dreads certainly aren't as solid as they were a couple of years ago in 5E, and the poor Hydra has been hammered into practical uselessness.

Necrons have been doing 50% win rate against Eldar ever since the v6 Eldar codex.

Maybe they're miles better than you think.


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 ionusx wrote:

morgoth wrote:
...

not at all but the fact is some armies have no answers at all for eldar that's being totally blunt orks come to mind as an army that can't cope with them. They have no answers to anything they field at all really. The tempestus also have the same problem, and the dark angels and chaos marines are also incapable of dealing with them, or they struggle a lot more than other armies would. And that'a not because of player skill it's because the books are actually that bad.

and regardless of what you want to argue their book is loaded with things that are too easily abused. It's also fact that the codex is devoid of bad units. The worst thing you can say about the worst eldar units is that their "situational" or "sub optimal". And they can literally assemble even basic lists and expect to do reasons ably well against well though out lists regardless of the player experience levels at the table that day. I dont pretend to play meta-game netlists I'm a dark angel my codex couldnt tango in a competitive environment if its existence depended on it. And frankly I don't care about that but even I see the bad units in my codex. I wish I could field an lsv without throwing away 200 points, or therminators (see what I did there cause their terminators but they burn up like thermite an ahhhahaha eheehehe I'll show myself out), or other units in my codex without them literally getting nothing meaningful accomplished before they die regardless of the nature of environment I play them in. I have friends who play other at armies who would love to dust off models that never see table time for many a good reason just like me such as warbuggies and ravenors and a host of others. And something must be done to bring them down to our level because it's a heck of a lot easier to change them than rewrite the rules for what is at least two dozen cases of garbadge rules for nice models scattered across many codecies.

The eldar need a new codex and they need to have a lot more restrain when writing it than they showed writing their current codex and then we can all have terrible books togeather. Because then at least you can say the army books are consistently terrible.

Orks are an army that auto rapes Wave Serpent the second you step out of "CAD+Allied".

That's the problem with WS, and it's the only problem with WS.

The Eldar codex is probably fine within the grand scheme of things, it's just one of the top codexes inside the CAD+Allied bubble.


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 Happyjew wrote:

Your math is a bit off.
Scatter Lasers will generate 3.556 hits. Shield will average 4.5 shots per turn, for another 4 hits. Of this you need (against SM no difference between the two), 2+ to Wound, so 7.556 hits becomes 6.297 Wounds. Of these a SM will save 66% of them so 2.0989 Marines dead per turn. Overpowered for a MBT? No. However the Serpent is not a Main Battle Tank. It is a transport.

And that matters only because you don't want to let the CAD go even though it's been dead for a long time.

Guess what, ScreamerStar is also a CAD abuse, as are Imperial Knights.


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SirDonlad wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
my point is that other armies for the same point value can do similar results at killing tanks or infantry.

i think that a large portion of the rage is just about how effectively it does both and more.

i've had one of these take down my flyers, i've had units of thallax (T5 W3) lose three guys in a single round of shooting from one and then run away. - that isn't common.
i've even had one go round the side of my mechanicum LR and blow it up.
all these happened in one round of shooting from one!

Have you considered that those events are about as likely as you blowing up a Wave Serpent with two shots of Lascannon ?


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 Voidwraith wrote:
Guys, If we're to only use how many marines a given unit kills as a way to compare it to a fast transport skimmer with special shielding and other unique goodies, we're playing into this troll's hands. This doesn't need to go any further.

The problem with that line of thought is that you fail to realize that you picked paper to beat rocks, and that made scissors your nemesis.

Wave Serpents are just plain weak against MEQ and TEQ, AV13 and (non-paper) planes as well as useless against AV14.

But you don't play that, you'd rather use some fancy OP gak that bashes those MEQ and TEQ.

Well tough luck bro, because the Wave Serpent can decently handle that fancy OP gak.

morgoth wrote:


And that's what's wrong with you whiners.

Do you really think any one of us Eldar Mech players ever won a game by just showing our codex to the opponent ?

Do you really think it's that easy to win against a same skill opponent who plays a good army ?

A couple of things.

First, you obviously missed were I noted in this thread that I own an Eldar army and have five Wave Serpents myself (on top of six Falcons).

Second, it's one thing to be a good player, but when someone posts in a thread with what amounts to 9 lines of self service in a sig, and just tells people almost literally "L2P", and tries to compare the Wave Serpent in all sorts of ways to dramatically inferior units to try and show how not overpowered it is and tries to redefine its role as MBT as opposed to a transport, it looks rather absurd.

morgoth wrote:

Makumba wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Rhinos are nothing to sniff at, for 140 points you've got four Rhinos, that's 12 HB shots and 12 AV11 HP, four different targets, four explodes results.
With our Aspect Warriors so terrible without transports (and with transports arguably), those wouldn't be a bad thing.
They're excellent LOS blockers that move 18 inches a turn and can benefit from terrain cover saves much easier than Wave Serpents.

Summary is, people whine way too much about Wave Serpents, can't you take one year of two of Eldar dominance in one specific army format (CAD+Allies) like we've taken years of IoM abuse ?

rhinos don't have heavy bolters. it is easier to get cover when to get it all you have to do is move, and even if you somehow need actual terrain being able to fly over stuff makes it easier to position well. As domination goes. RT=eldar OP. 2ed=eldar OP. 3ed=eldar OP . 3.5/4ed=eldar OP. 5ed eldar=good till codex GK. 6th ed=eldar OP. 7th=eldar OP.

Sure looks like dominance of IoM armies.

I can't talk about 1-3 because I did not play them.

I know for sure that 4,5 and 6 before the new codex were not dominated by Eldar.

Eldar very certainly were hugely dominant in 4th ed, that was the height of the flying circus, aided largely by another Eldar transport, the Falcon being almost impossible to kill between Skimmer "glance only" rules and Holofields and Vectored Engines resulting in any successful armor pen roll only having a 1-in-36 chance to kill it, and between that and area terrain completely blocking LoS, it almost always arrived exactly where it wanted to, unloaded its cargo of Harlequins (which couldn't be shot at beyond a few inches and Rending on 6's to hit and completely ignoring difficult terrain). In 6th, they certainly rocketed to the top once the book they have now came out, Eldar, and Eldar/Tau hybrid armies were certainly amongst the most dominating of 6th.

Pretty much the only edition where they weren't on top (as in top 3 if not absolute top) for a majority or the entirety of an edition was 5th, and they were still pretty solid for the first year or two even then.

morgoth wrote:

Necrons have been doing 50% win rate against Eldar ever since the v6 Eldar codex.

Maybe they're miles better than you think.

Which is an entirely different conversation than Wave Serpents vs Annihilation Barges. Necrons have their own issues, and are likely to see a substantial toning down when they're new codex comes out supposedly very soon here.

morgoth wrote:

Orks are an army that auto rapes Wave Serpent the second you step out of "CAD+Allied".

In what way? Also given that many events and playgroups play with such restrictions, that's highly relevant.

morgoth wrote:
The problem with that line of thought is that you fail to realize that you picked paper to beat rocks, and that made scissors your nemesis.

Wave Serpents are just plain weak against MEQ and TEQ, AV13 and (non-paper) planes as well as useless against AV14.

But you don't play that, you'd rather use some fancy OP gak that bashes those MEQ and TEQ.

Well tough luck bro, because the Wave Serpent can decently handle that fancy OP gak.

Again, two things.

First, it was shown subsequently that the Wave Serpent is actually really good at killing MEQ's relative to many other dedicated infantry killers, and is putting out more wounds against a TEQ unit than many relatively similar priced units with similar strength weapons and at much longer ranges. A LC/AC Predator for example costing roughly as much as a Wave Serpent (and being a dedicated heavy support tank) is going to put out an average of 0.74 wounds against TEQ's, while a Wave Serpent (without a Shuriken Cannon) is going to inflict on average 1.0486 wounds against TEQ's, and even a trilas Pred will put out only 1.22 wounds against TEQ's, while a similarly costed Wave Serpent with a Shuriken Cannon will average 1.78 wounds against TEQ's. You'll get similar relative superior performance with most Leman Russ variants barring those mounting plasma cannons (which can pose a danger to themeelves and fail to fire entirely). The Wave Serpent, particularly when massed, is putting out pretty good firepower against even these non-optimal targets relative to many actual heavy support battle tanks.

Second, trying to use the retort that the Wave Serpent is good at handling "fancy OP gak" is only going to confirm to most people its primacy as head of said "fancy OP gak".

The Wave Serpents Survivability isnt better than anything else in the game. Imperium Gets Smoke, which is the same as Jink.

OMFG - seriously!! A one shot thing that means you can't shoot for a turn is the same as jink - what imaginary world do you live in!

 Vaktathi wrote:

morgoth wrote:


And that's what's wrong with you whiners.

Do you really think any one of us Eldar Mech players ever won a game by just showing our codex to the opponent ?

Do you really think it's that easy to win against a same skill opponent who plays a good army ?

A couple of things.

First, you obviously missed were I noted in this thread that I own an Eldar army and have five Wave Serpents myself (on top of six Falcons).

Second, it's one thing to be a good player, but when someone posts in a thread with what amounts to 9 lines of self service in a sig, and just tells people almost literally "L2P", and tries to compare the Wave Serpent in all sorts of ways to dramatically inferior units to try and show how not overpowered it is and tries to redefine its role as MBT as opposed to a transport, it looks rather absurd.

First, who the feth cares about what miniatures you own ?

Second, when that player has actually maintained a great win loss ratio in an edition where Eldar weren't dominating, maybe that player is simply better than those who pretend that there are no counters to Wave Serpent when every statistic on the subject says otherwise.

Third, the Wave Serpent is an MBT in terms of point cost and primary use.

And that's relevant because it points where the issue is (CAD+Allied) instead of pointing in the wrong direction (WS OP).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
[q
I know for sure that 4,5 and 6 before the new codex were not dominated by Eldar.

Eldar very certainly were hugely dominant in 4th ed,

I think he meant to compare holofields to Smoke. Still way wrong, but that's my impression. Disruption pods and Camo Netting are reasonable comparisons, but Smoke is not.

Reading about what Harlies did in 4th makes their current cost understandable. I'm absurdly greatful I'm in a meta where I can field them anyways! (And Ork players seem to love seeing them)

Anyways, back to the topic. The WS is a tank, fluffwise. In addition to an APC, it fights on the front lines. More of a Shermen-esque role, as opposed to either Pred-like Panzers, or Razorback-like Ducks. While it gets its people into position, it is also a front-line (or as close as Eldar get) tank, just more based on infantry support than tank superiority.

The Falcon is the main battle tank of Eldar forces, but where it pops metal boxes, the Serpent carries whatever heavy armament the infantry need from it. Unlike a Rhino, Devilfish, or even a Razorback, it's firepower and durability isn't intended to be incidental.

These are Craftworlders. When they build a tank, it isn't paper. Sure, lower armor than a Leman Russ. But not nearly as easily hit. This is where it needs ghostwalk and holo to be fluffy - it should be hard to hit while still firing to full effect.

For the most part, the new rules fit amazingly with its fluff. If its just avoiding the fight, it can tank a gunline. Whatever job it was kitted for (anti infantry with SL/SC, av14 duty with BL, suppressive long-range fire with EML, etc), it can do reasonably, while getting the guys into position. For the most part, it is written to really do what the fluff says. Despite the complaints, it is still substantially more vulnerable to Lascannons than an LR, but has a very avoidy feel to it.

So far so good, but two problems.

First, the one that every APC has. For such a mobile vehicle to use its mobility, the guys inside have to wait an extra turn. Can't disembark if it moves more than 6". So Banshees or Fire Dragons or Guardians have to wait for the Serpent to move into Charge range and just hang tight for a round, before they can disembark. Every transport faces this. For most of them, though:
-Some have fire points
-Some carry longer distance guns (needing to be within 12 for oh so many guns can be difficult)
-Some aren't AV10 rear (admittedly rare)
-Almost all cost less (35 pt rhino!)
-Some are even Fliers, until its too late
Difficult, but fair. Everyone has to. But when the transport isn't survivable in charge range *and* costs MBT prices, can be painful. That said, we can deal with it. Need to get more out of it though, than just a transport.

All that works reasonably well. Put an EML up top, and it can do some nice harrassment while keeping my 10-man nice and safe and mobile.

Then we get to the fething Shield shooting profile. Omgwtfbbq is it stupid. Powerful ever for a MBT, and synergizes far too well with SL and a fast skimmer. Forget it and nerf it, and its fine. But with it, just wow.

(And remember, I can't put more than 6 in our only other transport - the Falcon, our real MBT. So if I want more than a token squad with my HQ, Serpent or on foot. Just dumb)

(Fire Prism is a mix of Tank Destroyer and mechanized artillery. Not a MBT)

(I wish the Hornet would get a Pulse Laser points bump. Such a fun little light tank)

 Vaktathi wrote:

morgoth wrote:
The problem with that line of thought is that you fail to realize that you picked paper to beat rocks, and that made scissors your nemesis.

Wave Serpents are just plain weak against MEQ and TEQ, AV13 and (non-paper) planes as well as useless against AV14.

But you don't play that, you'd rather use some fancy OP gak that bashes those MEQ and TEQ.

Well tough luck bro, because the Wave Serpent can decently handle that fancy OP gak.

Again, two things.

First, it was shown subsequently that the Wave Serpent is actually really good at killing MEQ's relative to many other dedicated infantry killers, and is putting out more wounds against a TEQ unit than many relatively similar priced units with similar strength weapons and at much longer ranges. A LC/AC Predator for example costing roughly as much as a Wave Serpent (and being a dedicated heavy support tank) is going to put out an average of 0.74 wounds against TEQ's, while a Wave Serpent (without a Shuriken Cannon) is going to inflict on average 1.0486 wounds against TEQ's, and even a trilas Pred will put out only 1.22 wounds against TEQ's, while a similarly costed Wave Serpent with a Shuriken Cannon will average 1.78 wounds against TEQ's. You'll get similar relative superior performance with most Leman Russ variants barring those mounting plasma cannons (which can pose a danger to themeelves and fail to fire entirely). The Wave Serpent, particularly when massed, is putting out pretty good firepower against even these non-optimal targets relative to many actual heavy support battle tanks.

Second, trying to use the retort that the Wave Serpent is good at handling "fancy OP gak" is only going to confirm to most people its primacy as head of said "fancy OP gak".

The Wave Serpent is actually horribly bad at killing MEQs. That's it. If you think 210 points killing 28 points of marines per turn is great, good for you.

Against TEQ, the Wave Serpent is just plain horrible. That's it. If you think 1.5 unsaved wounds against TEQ is great for 210 points, good for you. Tactical Marines will do 3,2. And they're not among the best at it.

The Trilas Pred is miles than a Wave Serpent because it does not require cargo to be fielded. Besides, that Pred is a tank hunter, not an all rounder.

Most good Leman Russ variants totally obliterate the WS in those two areas.


The Wave Serpent is good at killing Rhinos, acceptable against higher toughness and AV12, and bad but not useless against everything else, terrible against anything dealing with rear armor.

The Wave Serpent in itself is a very good choice because it can deal with a large number of situations, it's not OP and will never make the top of unbound lists.

It just happens to be a very good choice that can be fielded nine times in a single CAD, a limitation that you put on your games and that inevitably has its winners and losers.

Don't like it ? change your limitation and find another dominant species to whine about.

morgoth wrote:

SirDonlad wrote:

 Smitty0305 wrote:
my point is that other armies for the same point value can do similar results at killing tanks or infantry.

i think that a large portion of the rage is just about how effectively it does both and more.

i've had one of these take down my flyers, i've had units of thallax (T5 W3) lose three guys in a single round of shooting from one and then run away. - that isn't common.
i've even had one go round the side of my mechanicum LR and blow it up.
all these happened in one round of shooting from one!

Have you considered that those events are about as likely as you blowing up a Wave Serpent with two shots of Lascannon ?

yeah, and i occasionally make my thallax's FNP (6+) - but, infuriatingly, it all happened - not all in the same game thankfully; but would any other race hope to have such success at such a varied target type?.
i haven't ever taken down a WS with my mechanicum landraider with three single lascannons (and not because of a lack of trying - he jinks and then turns pens into glances).
my imperial avenger strike fighter has wrecked a couple (with added scatter lasers and tank hunters) but my best option for dealing with WS is thallax with the ferrox upgrade and heavy chain blades in close combat (only problem is getting them there) or moar thallax with tank hunters and phased plasma fusils deep striking behined them.

pretty s#*t that i have to tailor my list to deal with their TROOP TRANSPORTS

"Do you really think it's that easy to win against a same skill opponent who plays a good army ?"

Yes.

I think this guy's just trolling.

morgoth wrote:


First, who the feth cares about what miniatures you own ?

Because you're trying to make this into some absurd "us Eldar players" thing, and guess what, that includes me It's not just non-Eldar players who think Wave Serpents are silly overcapable.

Second, when that player has actually maintained a great win loss ratio in an edition where Eldar weren't dominating, maybe that player is simply better than those who pretend that there are no counters to Wave Serpent when every statistic on the subject says otherwise.

Anyone can put whatever they want on the internet, and none of the arguments put forth were shown to be solid, and largely retorted with simply "L2P", and repeatedly showed a rather glaring knowledge of the game as it currently stands (talking about Venoms being able to hurt Knights, not knowing armor values for common units like Leman Russ tanks, etc).

Third, the Wave Serpent is an MBT in terms of point cost and primary use.

Which is a problem because it's not supposed to be an MBT, it's supposed to be a transport, and its especially not supposed to be an MBT on par with something like a Predator or Leman Russ, especially not while being stellar transport as well. That's all a huge part of the problem.

And that's relevant because it points where the issue is (CAD+Allied) instead of pointing in the wrong direction (WS OP).

Only if you're just expecting everything to run Unbound and people to run nothing but MBT's...

Eldar were not dominant in 4th or 5th edition.

You don't remember 4th edition do you? They were very certainly dominant in 4th edition. For the first couple years they had all sorts of sillyness with Alaitoc disruption tables, Starcannon spam, etc, that routinely saw them doing *very* well, and then when they got their new codex the Falcon Flying Circus was *the* top army.

In all the ways possible, for the price of one Wave Serpent you have three trukks and thirty boyz, two trukkz are going to make it to T2 charge and boom you're dead.

Three minimum sized squads of Boyz with no upgrades and three Trukks are going to run 270pts. That's a lot more than one wave serpent, that's two, or two and a squad of infantry. Those boyz are Ld7 with very punitive Ld rules, the Trukks are AV10 and open topped, and unless they magically get into combat completely unmolested, or increase their cost further and add powerklaws, they're probably not going to kill a Wave Serpent...

As the restrictions you put on yourself are the cause of your problems, maybe you should consider changing those restrictions instead of pretending that something else is the problem.

I didn't say they were my restrictions, I said they were extremely common restrictions...

morgoth wrote:
The Wave Serpent is actually horribly bad at killing MEQs. That's it. If you think 210 points killing 28 points of marines per turn is great, good for you.

What Wave Serpent is 210pts? Why are you including the cost of the units its transporting but pretending its not worth anything either?

Against TEQ, the Wave Serpent is just plain horrible. That's it. If you think 1.5 unsaved wounds against TEQ is great for 210 points, good for you. Tactical Marines will do 3,2. And they're not among the best at it.

And again, you're missing the point of the kill ratios being *relative to similar units*.

The Trilas Pred is miles than a Wave Serpent because it does not require cargo to be fielded. Besides, that Pred is a tank hunter, not an all rounder.

This is assuming that for some reason the cargo has zero value. Also, it depends on what target you're engaging. Against anything AV12 or lower, a TL Scatterlaser serpent is stripping more HP's on average than the Trilas predator, and that's not including a potential shuriken cannon. It's only against heavy tanks that the Predator is superior. The Wave Serpent is more effective against a wider array of units than the Trilas Predator is, on top of being a Fast Skimmer and a Transport.

Most good Leman Russ variants totally obliterate the WS in those two areas.

Which "good" Leman Russ variants? The Executioner that's going to kill itself over the course of a 6 turn game and costs nearly 200pts after kit? The bog standard battle cannon variant is highly variable (BS3 scatter, woo) and any sort of cover drastically reduces its effectiveness, on top of being unable to use sponsons effectively and costing more at its base cost than a kitted Serpent?

The Wave Serpent is good at killing Rhinos, acceptable against higher toughness and AV12, and bad but not useless against everything else, terrible against anything dealing with rear armor.

No tank is going to deal well with anything hitting rear armor, that's not unique to the Wave Serpent. Relative to many other tanks, it's been shown that the Wave Serpent is not actually particularly bad at engaging lots of those other targets...

The Wave Serpent in itself is a very good choice because it can deal with a large number of situations, it's not OP and will never make the top of unbound lists.

It just happens to be a very good choice that can be fielded nine times in a single CAD, a limitation that you put on your games and that inevitably has its winners and losers.

Don't like it ? change your limitation and find another dominant species to whine about.

And if we're talking unbound, how's that make the Wave Serpent issue any better when you can just take a slew of them without *any* limitations? And again, if you're only recourse is "Play unbound", well, there's exactly *zero* tournaments that's going to fly in, and that's going to be an issue in most playgroups and leagues as well.

 Mr Morden wrote:

The Wave Serpents Survivability isnt better than anything else in the game. Imperium Gets Smoke, which is the same as Jink.

OMFG - seriously!! A one shot thing that means you can't shoot for a turn is the same as jink - what imaginary world do you live in!

Haha indeed, Smoke is one-use 5+ and prevents all shooting or moving flat out and prevents shooting from passengers, Jink is a 4+ and can be done every turn and you still get to shoot snapshots and move flat out and passengers can shoot at full effectiveness, comparing the two and saying they're equal is hilarious, especially when many units have to *pay* for smoke launchers

I played against the 4th ed Eldar codex with 5th BA and it was still damn hard. Eldrad could fortune warwalkers in cover and guide and still fortune another squad. And made you roll 3D6 to activate your powers!

Martel732 wrote:
"Do you really think it's that easy to win against a same skill opponent who plays a good army ?"

Yes.

I think this guy's just trolling.

Smitty and morgoth really must be, the alternative is just pathetic. I stared at his initial comment in disbelief. So Eldar players think that their almost 70% win percentage for 2014 GT play is because they are a uniquely skilled group of people?! Lolz. This thread has to be either trolling with dedication or a disturbing mix of hubris and ignorance. Seriously?! There are Eldar players that think its the dex that is average, and its them that's over the top better than the rest. This is rich. I forwarded this thread to our local Eldar player... he's trying to figure out if there's someway to disown people from a codex community.

Perhaps if this guy doesn't understand codex advantage, we can take a trip back to 3rd ed and I can pile drive him with Rhino rush BA over and over. It was broken. All the BA players knew it. All of us admitted it.

Martel732 wrote:
"Do you really think it's that easy to win against a same skill opponent who plays a good army ?"

Yes.

Surely if your opinion is relevant on that matter you know which builds are hard to play against for a WS Spam ?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Morgoth wrote:
In all the ways possible, for the price of one Wave Serpent you have three trukks and thirty boyz, two trukkz are going to make it to T2 charge and boom you're dead.

Three minimum sized squads of Boyz with no upgrades and three Trukks are going to run 270pts. That's a lot more than one wave serpent, that's two, or two and a squad of infantry. Those boyz are Ld7 with very punitive Ld rules, the Trukks are AV10 and open topped, and unless they magically get into combat completely unmolested, or increase their cost further and add powerklaws, they're probably not going to kill a Wave Serpent...

A Wave Serpent costs 210 points and includes a near useless squad of five Dire Avengers.
It can be upgraded to a squad of five Fire Dragons for 45 points.

Three minimum squads of boyz and three trukks cost 270 points and compare very favorably to either option.

I would like to see how you manage to not destroy a Wave Serpent with twenty boyz charging. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's really unlikely.

The Wave Serpent can at most blow up one Trukk per turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Morgoth wrote:
The Wave Serpent in itself is a very good choice because it can deal with a large number of situations, it's not OP and will never make the top of unbound lists.

It just happens to be a very good choice that can be fielded nine times in a single CAD, a limitation that you put on your games and that inevitably has its winners and losers.

Don't like it ? change your limitation and find another dominant species to whine about.

And if we're talking unbound, how's that make the Wave Serpent issue any better when you can just take a slew of them without *any* limitations? And again, if you're only recourse is "Play unbound", well, there's exactly *zero* tournaments that's going to fly in, and that's going to be an issue in most playgroups and leagues as well.

1. Unbound has way stronger builds than just a WS+WK CAD.
2. My only recourse against the logical conclusion of the system that you have selected is to not play that system.
3. Oh really. So on the one side you have no clue what competitive play is (given your opinion on the wave serpent) and on the other side you want to play tournaments ? lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lobukia wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Do you really think it's that easy to win against a same skill opponent who plays a good army ?"

Yes.

I think this guy's just trolling.

Smitty and morgoth really must be, the alternative is just pathetic. I stared at his initial comment in disbelief. So Eldar players think that their almost 70% win percentage for 2014 GT play is because they are a uniquely skilled group of people?! Lolz. This thread has to be either trolling with dedication or a disturbing mix of hubris and ignorance. Seriously?! There are Eldar players that think its the dex that is average, and its them that's over the top better than the rest. This is rich. I forwarded this thread to our local Eldar player... he's trying to figure out if there's someway to disown people from a codex community.

The only thing that came close to 70% was Eldar win rate for v6 since the inception of the new codex, and until the end of v6.
It was 64% with a 50% average against Necron-Chaos Daemons-Tau-Space Marine and then some free wins against the weaker codexes.
Yes it was pretty rough, but they were in no way unmatched one on one, just better at pwning the bad codexes.

Since the start of v7, Eldar have 2% more win rate than Tau, Necron, Space Marine, Chaos Daemons and are standing at 54%, the only real offender being Imperial Knights at 66%.

Here is what you should consider however:

If your win rate against Eldar is below 46% (1-54%), then it's very likely that your opponent is just better than you.

includes a near useless squad of five Dire Avengers.

Compared to what?

@Smitty, I'm guessing you're looking at US ToF games only. I compiled European and U.S. results. It's something like 67.8%... Like I said, almost 70%. And just on T3, it's clearly the best codex.

Even if Eldar stayed right at 50, it wouldn't change the silliness of asserting that the codex and especially the WS are somehow not unbalanced/easy button.

Don't feed the trolls. He's obviously a troll pushing people's buttons.

morgoth wrote:

If your win rate against Eldar is below 46% (1-54%), then it's very likely that your opponent is just better than you.

uuuh, that's not necessarily true - you could be skint and unable to buy the models you need to properly fight back.
my mate who has a company of dark angels cant really play my mate with 3 WS (and counting..) and 2 WK (and counting..) - he does anyway but he has to borrow allied detachments and fortifications to compete.
again, a bit s#*t we have to tailor our lists to deal with his 'one-size-fits-all' list

the thing i see a lot is wraithgaurd filling a WS all with the flamer template weapons - its not an assault vehicle so he just rocks it up to a squad or vehicle, pops the wraithguard out, toast whatever it is and then shoot the survivors into the ground with the WS the serp costs him 145pts because of scatter laser and holo-fields and the wraithguard count as troops.

i ended up copying this tactic with caleb decima + flamer-servitors and a mechanicum LR.

If your Davu serpents keep dying to assaults, perhaps your DAs should get out and help push?

Unless the assaulter is a Walker, or disembarks the same turn it charges, 5 DAs should be a little better than a 5-man Tac squad at clearing them. If they're in a transport, use your can opener of choice, then shoot the innards. You have 20 DAs on average. Might not be amazing firepower, but far from useless. Quite effective for 65x4 points you already consider as just a tax.

Perhaps that is why you don't think Serpents are broken? You're not using their tax at all?

DA get out and shred my BA face if I get close enough to assault them.

morgoth wrote:

A Wave Serpent costs 210 points and includes a near useless squad of five Dire Avengers.

Which is a disingenuous comparison. Likewise, you could always, you know, take a squad that isn't just a scoring upgrade and make actual use of them...

It can be upgraded to a squad of five Fire Dragons for 45 points.

Three minimum squads of boyz and three trukks cost 270 points and compare very favorably to either option.

And if you've taken 270pts of Dire Avengers+wave serpent to match the 270pts of Orks, the Eldar are likely in a far superior position for the relative points investment.

I would like to see how you manage to not destroy a Wave Serpent with twenty boyz charging. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's really unlikely.

This assumes the Boyz manage to get to the Wave Serpent. Likewise, if the Wave Serpent gets in two turns of shooting and you make use of those Dire Avengers, you've probably killed two trukks and a squad of boyz and forced at least one it not two or three Ld7 tests with the Ork leadership rules that simply increase the pace of their dying.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Morgoth wrote:
The Wave Serpent in itself is a very good choice because it can deal with a large number of situations, it's not OP and will never make the top of unbound lists.

It just happens to be a very good choice that can be fielded nine times in a single CAD, a limitation that you put on your games and that inevitably has its winners and losers.

Don't like it ? change your limitation and find another dominant species to whine about.

And if we're talking unbound, how's that make the Wave Serpent issue any better when you can just take a slew of them without *any* limitations? And again, if you're only recourse is "Play unbound", well, there's exactly *zero* tournaments that's going to fly in, and that's going to be an issue in most playgroups and leagues as well.

1. Unbound has way stronger builds than just a WS+WK CAD.

Not entirely sure about that anymore, especially given the potentialities for formations, multiple detachments, etc.

2. My only recourse against the logical conclusion of the system that you have selected is to not play that system.

Most people haven't, and no major tournaments allow Unbound.

3. Oh really. So on the one side you have no clue what competitive play is (given your opinion on the wave serpent)

Ok, gonna put the brakes on here.

You're delusional. Pure and simple. You're talking out of your ass at this point.

Serpentspam wins tournaments, routinely. That's not a controversial statement, nor a closely held secret. You seem to be about the only one who tries to deny this that I've ever seen.

Go look at tournament winning Eldar lists. You're either going to see armies running lots of Wave Serpents, or lots of jetbike Warlocks, or both. The Nova Open, one of the most competitive events out there, was won by an Eldar Serpentspam list running 5 of the things.

On what basis are you arguing that Wave Serpents are not showing exceedingly strongly at tournaments?


Especially given your previous assertion of how you need to run Unbound to counter Wave Serpents (setting aside that that in and of itself should tell you they're broken), and that no major tournaments allow Unbound, you then say that Wave Serpents aren't amazing in competitive play?

You're talking yourself into all sorts of corners here pal.

This is to say nothing of only selectively responding to refutations of your previous points.

In the interests of full disclosure I've been playing Mechdar since 4e; they were my first army and one I will always be fond of, but I'm not afraid to admit someone made a rules mistake when writing my Codex.

SirDonlad wrote:

morgoth wrote:

If your win rate against Eldar is below 46% (1-54%), then it's very likely that your opponent is just better than you.

uuuh, that's not necessarily true - you could be skint and unable to buy the models you need to properly fight back.
my mate who has a company of dark angels cant really play my mate with 3 WS (and counting..) and 2 WK (and counting..) - he does anyway but he has to borrow allied detachments and fortifications to compete.
again, a bit s#*t we have to tailor our lists to deal with his 'one-size-fits-all' list

the thing i see a lot is wraithgaurd filling a WS all with the flamer template weapons - its not an assault vehicle so he just rocks it up to a squad or vehicle, pops the wraithguard out, toast whatever it is and then shoot the survivors into the ground with the WS the serp costs him 145pts because of scatter laser and holo-fields and the wraithguard count as troops.

i ended up copying this tactic with caleb decima + flamer-servitors and a mechanicum LR.

You know, every good competitive list is "one-size-fits-all".

You're just missing one for your codex (note, some codex just don't have a really good one, that's a bit annoying.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lobukia wrote:
@Smitty, I'm guessing you're looking at US ToF games only. I compiled European and U.S. results. It's something like 67.8%... Like I said, almost 70%. And just on T3, it's clearly the best codex.

Even if Eldar stayed right at 50, it wouldn't change the silliness of asserting that the codex and especially the WS are somehow not unbalanced/easy button.

ToF is weighted.

T3 is not.

You can go to every local tournament and bash the attendees with the last power build and easily skew the rankings with that, I don't think it compares to ToF, which knows the difference between winning Nova and winning localcomp#26945


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
If your Davu serpents keep dying to assaults, perhaps your DAs should get out and help push?

Unless the assaulter is a Walker, or disembarks the same turn it charges, 5 DAs should be a little better than a 5-man Tac squad at clearing them. If they're in a transport, use your can opener of choice, then shoot the innards. You have 20 DAs on average. Might not be amazing firepower, but far from useless. Quite effective for 65x4 points you already consider as just a tax.

Perhaps that is why you don't think Serpents are broken? You're not using their tax at all?

I'm using them alright, but Serpents really die to assault, and the DAs don't really pay their points back, so it's not 100% tax, but it's really a tax and for all the long range and 12" move turns, it's just dead weight.

What I mean by that, is that if I could take a Wave without the DA, I would.

morgoth wrote:

SirDonlad wrote:

morgoth wrote:

If your win rate against Eldar is below 46% (1-54%), then it's very likely that your opponent is just better than you.

uuuh, that's not necessarily true - you could be skint and unable to buy the models you need to properly fight back.
my mate who has a company of dark angels cant really play my mate with 3 WS (and counting..) and 2 WK (and counting..) - he does anyway but he has to borrow allied detachments and fortifications to compete.
again, a bit s#*t we have to tailor our lists to deal with his 'one-size-fits-all' list

the thing i see a lot is wraithgaurd filling a WS all with the flamer template weapons - its not an assault vehicle so he just rocks it up to a squad or vehicle, pops the wraithguard out, toast whatever it is and then shoot the survivors into the ground with the WS the serp costs him 145pts because of scatter laser and holo-fields and the wraithguard count as troops.

i ended up copying this tactic with caleb decima + flamer-servitors and a mechanicum LR.

You know, every good competitive list is "one-size-fits-all".

You're just missing one for your codex (note, some codex just don't have a really good one, that's a bit annoying.)

40k is not a skill game. 40k is a list-building game. If you want to win a game because you played what you brought better instead of because you brought better stuff you should be looking at WMH.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Go look at tournament winning Eldar lists. You're either going to see armies running lots of Wave Serpents, or lots of jetbike Warlocks, or both. The Nova Open, one of the most competitive events out there, was won by an Eldar Serpentspam list running 5 of the things.

lol. How long ago was your last peek into competitive 40K ?

The NOVA was won by a guy who had lucky pairings and a very unlucky last opponent. Which he beat by a very narrow margin.

Anyway, if you don't know the subject, don't push.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Especially given your previous assertion of how you need to run Unbound to counter Wave Serpents (setting aside that that in and of itself should tell you they're broken), and that no major tournaments allow Unbound, you then say that Wave Serpents aren't amazing in competitive play?

What I tried to explain is this:

You pick a solution space, here it's CAD+Allied.
Within that solution space, there is a number of optimal solutions.
In this case, the most optimal solution is, say, WK, then Serpent Spam, #3 is Broadside Spam, #4 is ScreamerStar, #5 is Bakery and #6 is CenturionStar.

In this case, which acknowledges current statistics about competitive 40K, these are the most optimal solutions.

As soon as you change the solution space, the most optimal solutions are likely to change.

In other words, every time you pick a solution space, you're going to have better solutions and worse solutions, and that's a fact of life.

So why are you complaining about it ? You're the one who decided to play within that solution space.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

40k is not a skill game. 40k is a list-building game. If you want to win a game because you played what you brought better instead of because you brought better stuff you should be looking at WMH.

Says who ?

What do you know about it ? How many GT have you won ? Maybe - just maybe - you don't know everything about 40K.

And even then, what if list-building, which includes projecting possible combat scenarios and applicable tactics, was a skill. (no, really...)

If you want to win, you play Eldar; simple fact. Also I just looked at the NOVA results... majority Eldar... again.

morgoth wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

40k is not a skill game. 40k is a list-building game. If you want to win a game because you played what you brought better instead of because you brought better stuff you should be looking at WMH.

Says who ?

What do you know about it ? How many GT have you won ? Maybe - just maybe - you don't know everything about 40K.

And even then, what if list-building, which includes projecting possible combat scenarios and applicable tactics, was a skill. (no, really...)

I do know I've lost a lot of 40k games because I brought the wrong models. I've never lost a game of Warmachine because I brought the wrong models, but I've lost a lot because I fethed up gameplay.

I acknowledge list-building is a skill. My point is that what happens after your models are bought, built, painted, and put on the tabletop is the least skill-reliant of any wargame I've ever played (Bolt Action, 40k, WHFB, LotR, WMH, Infinity, BFG, AI, Mordheim, and one of my own creation, on the off chance anyone's keeping score)

morgoth wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

Your math is a bit off.
Scatter Lasers will generate 3.556 hits. Shield will average 4.5 shots per turn, for another 4 hits. Of this you need (against SM no difference between the two), 2+ to Wound, so 7.556 hits becomes 6.297 Wounds. Of these a SM will save 66% of them so 2.0989 Marines dead per turn. Overpowered for a MBT? No. However the Serpent is not a Main Battle Tank. It is a transport.

And that matters only because you don't want to let the CAD go even though it's been dead for a long time.

Guess what, ScreamerStar is also a CAD abuse, as are Imperial Knights.

What does somebody's incorrect math and my counter-claim that the Serpent is a Transport have to do with CADs?

 Happyjew wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

Your math is a bit off.
Scatter Lasers will generate 3.556 hits. Shield will average 4.5 shots per turn, for another 4 hits. Of this you need (against SM no difference between the two), 2+ to Wound, so 7.556 hits becomes 6.297 Wounds. Of these a SM will save 66% of them so 2.0989 Marines dead per turn. Overpowered for a MBT? No. However the Serpent is not a Main Battle Tank. It is a transport.

And that matters only because you don't want to let the CAD go even though it's been dead for a long time.

Guess what, ScreamerStar is also a CAD abuse, as are Imperial Knights.

What does somebody's incorrect math and my counter-claim that the Serpent is a Transport have to do with CADs?

I'm confused. We're griping about Wave Serpents model-by-model, CAD has been dead since the 6e Inquisition book at least.

 Quickjager wrote:
If you want to win, you play Eldar; simple fact. Also I just looked at the NOVA results... majority Eldar... again.

Well, IK do have a better win rate in other tourneys, so you're not necessarily correct.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

40k is not a skill game. 40k is a list-building game. If you want to win a game because you played what you brought better instead of because you brought better stuff you should be looking at WMH.

that is SO not why i play 30k!

i want to have a laugh with my mates, enjoy the story we set up - i shudder every time i think of that phrase "forge the narrative..." but honestly, that's actually the fun bit.

i think its relevant to say about why i hate 'monopoly' - you all start playing thinking "yeah, lets play a game!" and what this game really boils down to, is slowly grinding down your mates financially in a simulated fiscal world - nobody really enjoys that apart from the winner.

which brings me back to 30k: if its all about winning then one of the players is not going to have enjoyed themselves.

so i see every game as a crazy, crazy side-story in the hectic grimdark. just the way me and my mates like it!

plus with me playing mechanicum, relic and objective grab type scenarios make much more sense.

There's skill in 40k, just like there's skill in hunting but there's some serious elements of luck. But if there's a deer hunting competition, one guy gets a shotgun, the other a butter knife... skill kinda goes out the window.

SirDonlad wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

40k is not a skill game. 40k is a list-building game. If you want to win a game because you played what you brought better instead of because you brought better stuff you should be looking at WMH.

that is SO not why i play 30k!

i want to have a laugh with my mates, enjoy the story we set up - i shudder every time i think of that phrase "forge the narrative..." but honestly, that's actually the fun bit.

i think its relevant to say about why i hate 'monopoly' - you all start playing thinking "yeah, lets play a game!" and what this game really boils down to, is slowly grinding down your mates financially in a simulated fiscal world - nobody really enjoys that apart from the winner.

which brings me back to 30k: if its all about winning then one of the players is not going to have enjoyed themselves.

so i see every game as a crazy, crazy side-story in the hectic grimdark. just the way me and my mates like it!

plus with me playing mechanicum, relic and objective grab type scenarios make much more sense.

Totally agree, there's a feel to 30k that's so refreshing and different to 40k... until you've seen it, it can't be explained.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Battlewaggon vs. Wave Serpent
Price: Wave Serpent. The Battlewaggon is many things but cheap is not one of them.
Speed: Wave Serpent. Skimmer type and mobility upgrades.
Firepower vs. Light Infantry: Battlewaggon. A Large Blast and a hell of a lot of Big Shootaz, even with Orky BS.
Firepower vs. Heavy Infantry: This one might actually go to the Battlewaggon. An AP3 Large Blast is pretty damn useful.
Firepower vs. Light Vehicles: Wave Serpent. The Battlewaggon can't put out the volume at S6-7.
Firepower vs. Heavy Vehicles: Five BS2 S8 shots, one of which is Ordnance, or a twin-linked BS4 S8 Lance shot? The math is telling me the Wave Serpent wins this one, weirdly enough.
Durability: The Battlewaggon may have AV14 front and an extra Hull Point, but it's still 10 rear and has no Jink, I can't honestly award it Durability. Point to the Wave Serpent.
Transport Utility: Battlewaggon. Twenty Orks charging out of an open-topped transport? I don't care who or what you are, that's a threatening thing to deal with.
Price-Adjusted: Probably more points to the Wave Serpent here, simply because the Battlewaggon has to pay for its guns.
Synergy Bonus: Nope.
Final Score: Wave Serpent.

It's wrong to compare battlewagon with a wave serpent. They have completely different roles - BW is an assault transport delivery. The most you'd get is 1-2 guns to eat weapon destroyed or a wierd ap3 large blast in case you're running something shooty inside which ain't happening that often and is often not the best way to spend 30 points. It's s7 and 24 range. And it surely doesn't ignore cover. Wave serpent wins the firepower fight hands down.

BW's strength is that it's an opentopped transport with 20 transport capacity that has av12 which ain't bad for orks and ability to position av14 front towards the part of your enemy's forces (let's face it, side armor is darn huge and you basically have around 30 degrees of av14 front arc at best).

morgoth wrote:


...I'm using them alright, but Serpents really die to assault...

And just how do I manage to get the Serpent into assault range? There have been numerous claims of Tacs grenading them to death on rear armour in this thread, but I might as well say khornate warp talons will pwn a squad of MP Crisis suits. Technically it's true, but there is no way to actually get them into combat. If you're stupid enough to drive serpents within 18" for any reason other than dumping Fragons out and popping a land raider/knight/monolith or contesting/stealing objectives on T5, then it's no surprise that you don't think Eldar are overpowered. There is no other reason I can think of that a unit with a 48" move range should ever be assaulted by stuff that moves a maximum of 18" a turn.

Against a good foe, there is essentially no way to assault Wave Serpents.

Drasius wrote:

morgoth wrote:


...I'm using them alright, but Serpents really die to assault...

And just how do I manage to get the Serpent into assault range? There have been numerous claims of Tacs grenading them to death on rear armour in this thread, but I might as well say khornate warp talons will pwn a squad of MP Crisis suits. Technically it's true, but there is no way to actually get them into combat. If you're stupid enough to drive serpents within 18" for any reason other than dumping Fragons out and popping a land raider/knight/monolith or contesting/stealing objectives on T5, then it's no surprise that you don't think Eldar are overpowered. There is no other reason I can think of that a unit with a 48" move range should ever be assaulted by stuff that moves a maximum of 18" a turn.

Ah...AFAIK, the Wave Serpent can only go a maximum of 30" a turn. It's the jetbikes that can go 48".

On topic, I quite agree with the idea of it becoming an invulnerable save. The shooting profile isn't really needed, IMO, and the serpent would still be pretty good without it. The turning pens into glances could also be gotten rid of if it becomes an invulnerable save - because it'd still be a little bit too powerful in combination with Spirit Stones.

Martel732 wrote:
Against a good foe, there is essentially no way to assault Wave Serpents.

Against an opponent that is much better than you, there is no way to assault Wave Serpents.

Against an opponent your level, you'll find that it's not that hard to get a charge with the right units (no slow assault units without transport of course).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Drasius wrote:

morgoth wrote:


...I'm using them alright, but Serpents really die to assault...

If you're stupid enough to drive serpents within 18" for any reason other than dumping Fragons out and popping a land raider/knight/monolith or contesting/stealing objectives on T5, then it's no surprise that you don't think Eldar are overpowered. There is no other reason I can think of that a unit with a 48" move range should ever be assaulted by stuff that moves a maximum of 18" a turn.

1. Do you know of another way to dump the fragons and pop a land raider ? Because that's already two assaultable Wave Serpents guaranteed, doesn't sound that bad to me.
2. There is a 66% chance to have a T6, so essentially, bumrushing an objective on T5 is almost equal to giving up T6.
3. Wave Serpents may move 30" a turn, but they can't move more than 12" in the first movement and they're 7" long. In other words they can barely jump over a thin line of enemy infantry directly 1" ahead of them.

If you can't get some Wave Serpents in CC, you're just doing it wrong.

I'm not saying that getting them in CC will net you a victory of course, but thinking they're impossible to catch just reveals how limited your tactics are.

 Smitty0305 wrote:
I posted my thoughts on the topic here

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/How_Overpowered_is_the_Wave_Serpent

I added a comparison with tank hunting, Transport hunting and MC hunting, too bad the Venom used in the comparison cannot handle tanks at all, and is only slightly better at T6 3+ MCs.
I thought that it might be fair to compare some different types of units, since the ability to kill MEQ is not the standard by which a transports efficiency should be measured with.

I also fixed the "looking at the results part) and rewrote the conclusion to reflect my new findings that you missed. The math is a bit off though since i used your numbers and you only provided decimals instead of fractions, sorry for that.

Welcome to ignore Morgoth. Have a nice and lengthy stay. Protip: go look down your nose at someone else.