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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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.


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

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 ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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 ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.