Wave serpent rage, why?

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**Vaktathi**

AegisGrimm wrote:
They haven't had any more overcosted units than many other armies, and were certainly no slouches in 3E and 4E with their invinciskimmers, Alaitoc distruption tables, flying circus, and 3E starcannon spam, etc.

Shining Spears are a definite one. Remember in 3E when they were 50 points apiece? Even now they are more expensive than they should be.

Oh I'm not denying that Eldar haven't had overcosted units, but every army has. How much have you seen IG Ogryns or Rough Riders on tables throughout the last several editions?

**Martel732**

I saw Ogryns quite a bit in 5th. They were a good hedge against assaults.

**Vaktathi**

I never saw them in 5th, like, ever

**Martel732**

Maybe I'm just imagining things here, but I break down units like this: some might be overcosted, but sometimes they bring something valuable to a list. And some lists can afford to bring over costed units more than others. Usually its those lists with cheap stuff to begin with

So Ogryns were kinda overcosted in 5th, but there are actually hard to beat in HTH and were not shabby at shooting. They didn't get IDed by the melta weapons that were so popular. I considered the "acceptably overcosted".

Contrast that to say, BA DC w/jump packs.

**hiveof_chimera**

labmouse42 wrote:
Tamwulf wrote:
Think about what you are saying- "...If you build your army correctly..." means "...if you build your army to take on Eldar..." now what are you going to do in a tournament environment? This last weekend, I faced off against a four Wave Serpent and Jet bike list, a Necron "Con-Air" list, and a White Scars 38 bike/15 Gravgun list.
Firstly, 40k is very list dependent. Right now there are a handful of lists that are 'all comers' and those are Eldar/Tau and Eldar/DE. Anything else is going to have bad matchups. The question is -- what percentage of bad matchups are you going to have.

If your going to be playing 1/3 eldar, then you probably want to run with the wolves you have been using. If your seeing a lot more Eldar/Tau you might want to run with something else.

In the example I gave, those points would not have been useless against a bike army. They would be wiping out one bike squad per turn. I play a white scars army, and I can assure you that 6 cover ignoring STR 8+ shots suck hard. Especially when they are immune to my grav guns. Cron-air also has big problems when our knocking 1-2 of them out of the sky a turn.

Tamwulf wrote:
to kill ONE WAVE SERPENT that costs less then 150 points. FYI, Mathammer still says with three TLLCs and three TLMLs, you will only get five hits, three glances (converted penetrating hits to glances from Serpent Shield). I'm not sure how you are ignoring cover or getting Tank Hunters, unless you are suggesting taking another Special Character to buff the Cent squad?
Firstly, if the Eldar player is not shooting the serpent shield you have already won. You say a smart Eldar player will never shoot the shield midgame -- that's completely off base. I played a seerStar for a few months and let me assure you that holding back the serpent shield was a mistake 8/9 of the time. The serpent shield is what makes the wave serpent over the top.
Finally, this is an ongoing effect. 1-2 serpents a turn will be effected or destroyed. Its not like the cents are a one shot wonder. That's a serious problem for eldar players.

Imperial fists get tank hunter. Tigurius can roll 3 times on the divination table, and gets to reroll any power he does not like. If tiggy says "I want ignore cover", hes probably going to get it. The other route is to take a tau buffmander ally with tank hunter -- but I would go with tiggy for the other options he brings.

According to mathhammer this is what your looking at. per cent
(8/9 chance to hit) * (3/4 chance to penetrate) = 2/3 penetrates per turn.
(8/9 chance to hit) * (55% chance to penetrate) = ~4/9 penetrates per turn.
If you throw 2 cents at one target and another cent at a different target (as they have split fire), your probably going to be getting 2 pen effects on one target and one pen effect on another target. Pen effects are bad -- especially with the AP2 lascannons. But even a 'stunned' result winds up with a wave serpent in big trouble.

Most eldar have a problem with AV14. They have 2 tools in their kit -- fire dragons and wraithknights. A decent marine army should be able to deal with them before they become a big threat.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tamwulf wrote:
The best, most effective way to take out a Wave Serpent is concentrated firepower, more firepower than a typical Space Marine army can field in the 1500-2000 point range. The saving grace is that the rest of the Eldar army is not nearly as efficient or difficult to deal with as a Wave Serpent. If you can somehow just ignore them, your chances of winning go up.
Incorrect. The best way to take out any target to is combine special rules. If you look at the game, that's what makes winning armies win. Its not the base riptide thats over the top. By itself a riptide is a decent, but not amazing unit. Its when the riptide is given twin-linked, interceptor, skyfire, tank-hunters, and ignore cover it gets over the top.

Trying to apply a brute force approach to winning games instead of maximizing special rules is a losing game. The torrent of fire stats illustrate this. Look at the top winning armies. All of them exploit special rules.

Eldar have more than 2 tools to deal with 13+ armour effectively trust me

you see we have runes of warding against tigerius*whines*