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 Tamwulf wrote:
According to GW Community Metawatch article, Harilquins have over a 60% win rate. So what do they have that Craftworld Eldar don't?

Eldar trickery mostly.
-1 to wound aura, -6" range aura, invulns on everything, -1 to hit on many things, real mobility.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
According to GW Community Metawatch article, Harilquins have over a 60% win rate. So what do they have that Craftworld Eldar don't?

Eldar trickery mostly.
-1 to wound aura, -6" range aura, invulns on everything, -1 to hit on many things, real mobility.

Durable non-vehicle units with mobility. There is no such thing as a durable vehicle unit in modern 40k.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
According to GW Community Metawatch article, Harilquins have over a 60% win rate. So what do they have that Craftworld Eldar don't?

Eldar trickery mostly.
-1 to wound aura, -6" range aura, invulns on everything, -1 to hit on many things, real mobility.

Durable non-vehicle units with mobility. There is no such thing as a durable vehicle unit in modern 40k.

Myphitic blight haulers are quite hard to take down honestly.

They also have great stratagems and weaponry to handle the Primaris heavy meta with their weight of attacks and ability to ignore the issues of terrain with their flip belts. The small profile of their units also makes it easy for them stay out of LoS.

 Grimskul wrote:
They also have great stratagems and weaponry to handle the Primaris heavy meta with their weight of attacks and ability to ignore the issues of terrain with their flip belts. The small profile of their units also makes it easy for them stay out of LoS.

Ive asked before and never got an aswer:
Do flip belt actually do anything for them that they couldnt do if they were only infantry?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
They also have great stratagems and weaponry to handle the Primaris heavy meta with their weight of attacks and ability to ignore the issues of terrain with their flip belts. The small profile of their units also makes it easy for them stay out of LoS.

Ive asked before and never got an aswer:
Do flip belt actually do anything for them that they couldnt do if they were only infantry?

Yes. Flip Belts are better than fly because you can ignore other models on the charge - not to mention being better than normal infantry. They also ignore verticality (can charge a unit above them in terrain without needing the distance required, which normal infantry cannot do).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
They also have great stratagems and weaponry to handle the Primaris heavy meta with their weight of attacks and ability to ignore the issues of terrain with their flip belts. The small profile of their units also makes it easy for them stay out of LoS.

Ive asked before and never got an aswer:
Do flip belt actually do anything for them that they couldnt do if they were only infantry?

Yes. Flip Belts are better than fly because you can ignore other models on the charge - not to mention being better than normal infantry. They also ignore verticality (can charge a unit above them in terrain without needing the distance required, which normal infantry cannot do).

wait, fly doesn't ignore models on the charge? i thought they reverted that change with 9th lol. As for verticality, this means that quins can get a 0" charge basically?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
They also have great stratagems and weaponry to handle the Primaris heavy meta with their weight of attacks and ability to ignore the issues of terrain with their flip belts. The small profile of their units also makes it easy for them stay out of LoS.

Ive asked before and never got an aswer:
Do flip belt actually do anything for them that they couldnt do if they were only infantry?

Yes. Flip Belts are better than fly because you can ignore other models on the charge - not to mention being better than normal infantry. They also ignore verticality (can charge a unit above them in terrain without needing the distance required, which normal infantry cannot do).

wait, fly doesn't ignore models on the charge? i thought they reverted that change with 9th lol. As for verticality, this means that quins can get a 0" charge basically?

It's not exactly clear but the way I've seen it played is that they can have a 0" charge from below an enemy unit, yes. And no, fly does not ignore models on the charge, only terrain. (so they half reverted it with 9th).

Yeah, it's kinda weird with the wording, but a lot of what makes Harlequins successful is that they get to ignore a lot of the basic rules restrictions (i.e. the terrains stuff with flip belts, advancing and charging, falling back and still being able to shoot/charge, AP not mattering to their army).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
And no, fly does not ignore models on the charge, only terrain. (so they half reverted it with 9th).

Based on the "as if they were not there" in the core rules and the "Moving through models" core rulebook FAQ entry, I don't think this is accurate. In addition the core rules specifically state that models with fly have to move over terrain normally during a charge move.

WarhammerFAQ wrote:
MOVING THROUGH MODELS
Some models have a rule that enables them to ‘move through/over models’, or ‘move through/over models as if they were not there’. Sometimes such a rule will only apply to specific types of movement (e.g. Normal Moves, Advance moves, charge moves etc.) while other times it will apply to all types of movement. In any case, when moving a model with such a rule, it can be moved within Engagement Range of enemy models, but it can never finish a move on top of another model, or its base, and it cannot finish a Normal Move, Advance or Fall Back move within Engagement Range of any enemy models, and it can only end a charge move in Engagement Range of units it declared a charge against that phase).

So models with fly can move in engagement range of any enemy models, but can only end their move in engagement range of models they declared a charge against.

Wait it is the opposite of what I said. I had it backwards.

Fly ignores models when charging but not terrain. Flip belts ignore both.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Why couldn't you have an Evasion save? Something unique to Eldar and other highly twitchy gitz... I'm thinking a 5+ (adjustable) that you would roll before the wound roll happens...

I could see that representing the agility of the race, leave open the rule for other factions, like maybe assassins, and increase their durability without having to adjust the stats

I don't disagree. It's basically an invuln that you can roll right into another invuln or armor save. The irony is that at 5++++++++ it's really really good, at 6+++++++ it's not worth rolling (not really) except against single target huge damage hits, and at 4++++++++ it's probably broken as feth. Talking army wide here, of course.

lost track of how many pluses we're at now.

The "Evasion Save" is basically the "Ward Save" I was pitching a couple pages back. I'd probably roll it after wounds and before saves (for the same logistical /time saving reasons we roll saves after to-wound rolls). My suggestion is to have it replace Battle Focus. Make it a 5+ that improves to a 4+ if you charge and/or advance. So you can either ignore 1/3rd of the wounds coming your way with no downside, or you can can give up 1/4th of your successful ranged to-hit rolls to ignore 1/2 of the wounds coming your way.

It seems fluffy, works in melee, and doesn't impact BS4+ armies more harshly than BS3+ armies the way to-hit modifiers do.

Modifying the evasion save with psychic powers is an interesting thought. Eldar don't really have a lot of sources of FNP at the moment. Just the Ulthwe trait and Fortune (ignoring Crusade Battle Honors, the Avatar, Fuegan, and Ghost Helms). So maybe those could just be changed to interact with the evasion saves to cut down on the number of dice rolled to resolve an attack. So in theory, you'd almost never roll a FNP after rolling an evasion save. You'd actually end up rolling fewer dice overall because you'd be rolling one ward save per failed save rather than one FNP per damage taken.

Even then, a 4+ evasion save is proooobably too good. So maybe you do something like...
Fortune = the target unit can reroll up to X evasion saves before your next psychic phase.
Enhance = As-is, but also reroll Evasion saves of 1 in the fight phase.
Ulthwe Trait = Reroll Evasion saves of 1 while within 6" of an Ulthwe psyker model.

I feel like it's okay for eldar to be "tanky." We just shouldn't be blocking bullets with our faces. Craftworlders take steps to try and stay alive. They're known for generally being relatively lightly armored, but they aren't known for high casualty rates. You can make us durable enough to compete and price us accordingly without it breaking fluff.

I do not see GW adding an extra layer in the attack sequence. You've got to hit, to wound, save (armour or invuln) and in some cases, a FNP. Last thing we need is another type of save in the game.

bullyboy wrote:I do not see GW adding an extra layer in the attack sequence. You've got to hit, to wound, save (armour or invuln) and in some cases, a FNP. Last thing we need is another type of save in the game.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Eldar don't really have a lot of sources of FNP at the moment. Just the Ulthwe trait and Fortune (ignoring Crusade Battle Honors, the Avatar, Fuegan, and Ghost Helms). So maybe those could just be changed to interact with the evasion saves to cut down on the number of dice rolled to resolve an attack. So in theory, you'd almost never roll a FNP after rolling an evasion save. You'd actually end up rolling fewer dice overall because you'd be rolling one ward save per failed save rather than one FNP per damage taken.

Even then, a 4+ evasion save is proooobably too good. So maybe you do something like...
Fortune = the target unit can reroll up to X evasion saves before your next psychic phase.
Enhance = As-is, but also reroll Evasion saves of 1 in the fight phase.
Ulthwe Trait = Reroll Evasion saves of 1 while within 6" of an Ulthwe psyker model.

Given that we're talking about a special ability for a single faction that doesn't have a ton of FNP floating around to begin with, it would be pretty easy to avoid adding "an extra layer in the attack sequence." Eldar would just have a unique step that they'd always be taking in place of the FNP step. Assuming you replaced Fuegan and the Avatars' FNP rules that is. If GW is going to avoid USRs for the sake of being able to customize rules to fit an army, then this seems like a good example of a place where that could apply. Instead of using the page space to write down Battle Focus, you write down the Evasion Save rules.

QUins have lots of good cheap transports that are surprisingly tanky and are fast and troops they protect are in turn really good.

We have a 200pt wave serpent that you going to put what inside exactly ? 6 wraiths at the most.. which is already 1/3 of your army..If WS gets popped those wraiths are walking the rest of the game with 5" movement..

Harlequins are massively undercosted compared to craftworld. And actually every other codex in the game (marines included)

A starweaver is a mere 80 points. Troupes get base 4 attacks with power weapons for a measly 19-20 points. Troupe masters are 70 points. It's crazy, they're playing with 8th edition points while everyone else is in 9th edition.

If everything in the Craftworld codex was 20% cheaper, i'm sure they'd be doing better.

On the subject of Evasion saves... What if you forced your opponent to re-roll successful hits instead. That would be interesting, and frustrating for them! Perfect for eldar.

 footfoe wrote:

On the subject of Evasion saves... What if you forced your opponent to re-roll successful hits instead. That would be interesting, and frustrating for them! Perfect for eldar.

or what if they denied re-rolls and buffs to hit them instead of forcing penalties / re-rolls. would keep the whole weight of fire weakness while making them more resiliant to small elite armies focused on buff stacking.

what exactly needs to be buffed?
Wave Serpents and Falcons have decent durability as transports, and you should be keeping your serpents closer to 150/160pts, not 200pts.
The other armour options and aircraft are also decent, but by all means we could make a few changes to the special equipment to improve some of them.
It's really only the infantry that need to be improved to a great degree (and the wraithknight too I guess).

Harlequins aren't winning because of their transports, that's for sure.

 bullyboy wrote:
what exactly needs to be buffed?
Wave Serpents and Falcons have decent durability as transports, and you should be keeping your serpents closer to 150/160pts, not 200pts.
The other armour options and aircraft are also decent, but by all means we could make a few changes to the special equipment to improve some of them.
It's really only the infantry that need to be improved to a great degree (and the wraithknight too I guess).

Harlequins aren't winning because of their transports, that's for sure.

Pretty much every living eldar on foot, including characters (and special characters).

There should be more options for characters, aspects should be very good at the role they have taken and guardians should be great as support units for an aspect assault, but not as a stand alone force (unless you take the trait ala ulthwe black guardians).

 Hellebore wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
what exactly needs to be buffed?
Wave Serpents and Falcons have decent durability as transports, and you should be keeping your serpents closer to 150/160pts, not 200pts.
The other armour options and aircraft are also decent, but by all means we could make a few changes to the special equipment to improve some of them.
It's really only the infantry that need to be improved to a great degree (and the wraithknight too I guess).

Harlequins aren't winning because of their transports, that's for sure.

Pretty much every living eldar on foot, including characters (and special characters).

There should be more options for characters, aspects should be very good at the role they have taken and guardians should be great as support units for an aspect assault, but not as a stand alone force (unless you take the trait ala ulthwe black guardians).

that was my point...the vehicles are good, it's really just Eldar footsloggers that need serious help.

 Argive wrote:
QUins have lots of good cheap transports that are surprisingly tanky and are fast and troops they protect are in turn really good.

We have a 200pt wave serpent that you going to put what inside exactly ? 6 wraiths at the most.. which is already 1/3 of your army..If WS gets popped those wraiths are walking the rest of the game with 5" movement..

Pedantic fact checking:
* Harlequins have a single transport.
* It's misleading to make it sound like wave serpents can transport six models "at the most. " You can potentially fit 6 units in there if you really want to (3 reaper squads and 3 characters.)

The wave serpent is worth its points. It's durable. It can hold a lot of dudes (twice as many wraith guard as a raider can hold grotesques by comparison), and its shooting isn't awful. It even has the serpent shield's mortal wound generation. The wave serpent is good for its price. It's just that that price is (reasonably) very high, and many eldar units depend on transports for survival. The falcon isn't cheap enough in comparison to the serpent to really be the cheap alternative craftworlders would like to have. Having access to something like a venom or starweaver or even a raider (rougly half the cost of a wave serpent) might help out squishy infantry units in our codex by lowering the competition for seats. Not that I'm advocating for a craftworld venom.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bullyboy wrote:
what exactly needs to be buffed?

Kind of depends on where you want armies in general to look like. Right now lots of marine units are more effective than lots of craftworld units. If we were to nerf marines down closer to our current level, I'd say we mostly just need some fixes for our melee units, a price reduction for our warlock conclave, and an update to/replacement for Battle Focus that makes our space elves feel fast again.

If we're accepting that marines are where all armies should be, proooobably most of the codex is lagging behind a bit. Compare war walkers to dakka dreads, avengers to tactical marines, falcons to those new primaris predator things, autarchs to captains, scorpions to assault marrines (or let alone assault intercessors), etc.

Not trying to drag the discussion into marine bashing, but the question kind of calls for an establishment of what a reasonable level of cost-effectiveness looks like.

Imo they should just make falcons transport units and leave the prism as the MBT.

The falcon is like a razorback, small transport and some guns.


Epic used to treat falcons and wave serpents as transports.

 footfoe wrote:
Harlequins are massively undercosted compared to craftworld. And actually every other codex in the game (marines included)

A starweaver is a mere 80 points. Troupes get base 4 attacks with power weapons for a measly 19-20 points. Troupe masters are 70 points. It's crazy, they're playing with 8th edition points while everyone else is in 9th edition.

If everything in the Craftworld codex was 20% cheaper, i'm sure they'd be doing better.

On the subject of Evasion saves... What if you forced your opponent to re-roll successful hits instead. That would be interesting, and frustrating for them! Perfect for eldar.

I don't actually know if it's their melee power that's making them such a competitive force. Most lists I'm seeing do well in tourneys are based on the 5-fusion troupe in a weaver and the haywire bike.

Wyldhunt wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bullyboy wrote:
what exactly needs to be buffed?

Kind of depends on where you want armies in general to look like. Right now lots of marine units are more effective than lots of craftworld units. If we were to nerf marines down closer to our current level, I'd say we mostly just need some fixes for our melee units, a price reduction for our warlock conclave, and an update to/replacement for Battle Focus that makes our space elves feel fast again.

If we're accepting that marines are where all armies should be, proooobably most of the codex is lagging behind a bit. Compare war walkers to dakka dreads, avengers to tactical marines, falcons to those new primaris predator things, autarchs to captains, scorpions to assault marrines (or let alone assault intercessors), etc.

Not trying to drag the discussion into marine bashing, but the question kind of calls for an establishment of what a reasonable level of cost-effectiveness looks like.

I would take a Falcon over the new marine Gladiator variants anyday. They are very pricey.

 bullyboy wrote:
Harlequins aren't winning because of their transports, that's for sure.

As others had pointed out, they sort of are. The main strength of Harlequins is their troupes because they:

1) can all have good close combat weapons
2) can all have fusion pistols
3) have an invulnerable save
4) have excellent movement rules
5) are cheap for what they do
6) can be delivered in a fast, cheap, open-topped transport

So you have a unit that it is extremely dangerous to multi-wound models, can't be tied down, and is somewhat durable. Their only weaknesses are that their weapons are short-ranged and they might get shot up on the approach. The transport perfectly mitigates those weaknesses.

Now, the underlying problem is that it's bad game design to let every member of the troupe take a fusion pistol, but that wouldn't be as much of a problem if they didn't have a transport to get them into fusion range.

 Saber wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
Harlequins aren't winning because of their transports, that's for sure.

As others had pointed out, they sort of are. The main strength of Harlequins is their troupes because they:

1) can all have good close combat weapons
2) can all have fusion pistols
3) have an invulnerable save
4) have excellent movement rules
5) are cheap for what they do
6) can be delivered in a fast, cheap, open-topped transport

So you have a unit that it is extremely dangerous to multi-wound models, can't be tied down, and is somewhat durable. Their only weaknesses are that their weapons are short-ranged and they might get shot up on the approach. The transport perfectly mitigates those weaknesses.

Now, the underlying problem is that it's bad game design to let every member of the troupe take a fusion pistol, but that wouldn't be as much of a problem if they didn't have a transport to get them into fusion range.

I mean the box comes with 2 of them. You could just limit them to 2/5 4/10+, there's no reason that ALL members of the squad HAVE to be able to take the upgraded pistols.

Also Soaring Spite represents some of the problem as well. There is a difference between your transport being able to fly 16" and you can shoot your pistols vs it being able to fly 24".

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Argive wrote:
QUins have lots of good cheap transports that are surprisingly tanky and are fast and troops they protect are in turn really good.

We have a 200pt wave serpent that you going to put what inside exactly ? 6 wraiths at the most.. which is already 1/3 of your army..If WS gets popped those wraiths are walking the rest of the game with 5" movement..

Pedantic fact checking:
* Harlequins have a single transport.
* It's misleading to make it sound like wave serpents can transport six models "at the most. " You can potentially fit 6 units in there if you really want to (3 reaper squads and 3 characters.)

The wave serpent is worth its points. It's durable. It can hold a lot of dudes (twice as many wraith guard as a raider can hold grotesques by comparison), and its shooting isn't awful. It even has the serpent shield's mortal wound generation. The wave serpent is good for its price. It's just that that price is (reasonably) very high, and many eldar units depend on transports for survival. The falcon isn't cheap enough in comparison to the serpent to really be the cheap alternative craftworlders would like to have. Having access to something like a venom or starweaver or even a raider (rougly half the cost of a wave serpent) might help out squishy infantry units in our codex by lowering the competition for seats. Not that I'm advocating for a craftworld venom.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bullyboy wrote:
what exactly needs to be buffed?

Kind of depends on where you want armies in general to look like. Right now lots of marine units are more effective than lots of craftworld units. If we were to nerf marines down closer to our current level, I'd say we mostly just need some fixes for our melee units, a price reduction for our warlock conclave, and an update to/replacement for Battle Focus that makes our space elves feel fast again.

If we're accepting that marines are where all armies should be, proooobably most of the codex is lagging behind a bit. Compare war walkers to dakka dreads, avengers to tactical marines, falcons to those new primaris predator things, autarchs to captains, scorpions to assault marrines (or let alone assault intercessors), etc.

Not trying to drag the discussion into marine bashing, but the question kind of calls for an establishment of what a reasonable level of cost-effectiveness looks like.

I said transports because you take plural. As in more than one transport.. therefore they are cheap transports...

I disagree that its durable now.
Post imperial melta and upcoming fusion update its damage reduction simply doesn't matter when you are being shot at by Str 8 -4 2+d6 dmg weapons on units that cost a fraction of what the serpent costs...

I don't quite like what you are implying about me being misleading regarding transport capacity... If you really want to be pendandic. You can actually technically transport 10 UNITS! You could take 4 warlocks, 3 spirit seers, 2 farseers and 3 dark reapers... But does it matter? Are you ever going to do that? (because that would mean taking 3 battalions)
I meant that optimally youd stuff maybe wraiths /aspects in there if you'd actually take one. And if you go bare bones the only output is peashooter 2 shuri canon shots.. So again..

Don't get me wrong, Its is a really good unit for CWE as its very utilitarian.
But by no means is it what it used to be, and simply doesn't really cut the mustard anymore simply becasue of the cost of it and the infantry bodies you would then pay pts to take.

By comparison the quin transports are very spammable, and opened top, transport good units, are actually more durable pt for pt to hit penalty, to wound penalty and invuln as well as range penalty? That is extremely good protection against alpha strike. The serpents 3+ and reduce damage by 1 just doesn't really compare.

We may have different philosophies here but I kinda have to disagree about taking seprents bare bones cheap. Whats the point you are paying pts for maybe some MW output, at which pints you sacrifice the durability you pay pts for.. Might as well take a falcon if you want cheap transport and at least it will lay down some dakka from range with EC it will do some serious hurt.

Quins are doing very well because:

They excel at mobility which allows them to objective capture
They are very efficient for their points thanks to outpur across all of the phases and relative durability.
The pts are very generous. Meanwhile CWE pay what ? 15 pts for a ranger ? Its dumb...

However you make one mistake, get really unlucky and their fragile nature will unravel the army.

I think you might be mixing up your responses to different posters there Argive.

Quins are indeed good, but they are far more than just the transport, and I believe some of the successful lists have been mostly foot quins. Harlies are good, and it ain't the starweavers that make them good, but they do give them some good board control.

I still don;t think you invest a ton of points in a serpent. If you want a tank, take a tank. Shuricats in hull over cannon (unless you have leftover points) to save 10pts. Turret weapon can be upgraded but i wouldn't add many upgrades. Twin starcannon gives you a 160pt vehicle, which is still pretty durable, unless it's your only one.
Of course, until the models inside are buffed to make them worthwhile, why bother with a transport?

Eldar don't need a cheap transport, they do armour over nimble raiders. They just need to make the contents worthwhile. IMHO at least.

 Argive wrote:

I said transports because you take plural. As in more than one transport.. therefore they are cheap transports...

Ah. I straight up misread what you were trying to say then. By, "Lots of good cheap transports," you were just referring to their cheapness twice. Fair enough.

I disagree that its durable now.
Post imperial melta and upcoming fusion update its damage reduction simply doesn't matter when you are being shot at by Str 8 -4 2+d6 dmg weapons on units that cost a fraction of what the serpent costs...

It's been a while since I went to any competitive events, so maybe my grasp of the modern optimized landscaping is lacking. Aren't we mostly talking about multi-meltas and eradicators? If I'm not mistaken, most of the guns that got the new melta rule are are too short-ranged to be in half range coming in from reserves, and my serpents are generally happy to give ground if there's a dedicated anti-tank unit coming towards them. In my recent (pretty casual) games, my serpents have been reasonably durable against low-volume d6 damage weapons like lascannons and very frustrating against 2 and 3 damage weapons. They're definitely not unkillable (nor should they be), but they certainly absorb more shooting than my raiders do.

Basically, they still seem pretty durable against most things to me. No vehicle looks durable when eradicators are shooting at it. I may be objectively incorrect, but I'm still under the impression that a wave serpent is durable for its cost.

I don't quite like what you are implying about me being misleading regarding transport capacity... If you really want to be pendandic. You can actually technically transport 10 UNITS! You could take 4 warlocks, 3 spirit seers, 2 farseers and 3 dark reapers... But does it matter? Are you ever going to do that? (because that would mean taking 3 battalions)
I meant that optimally youd stuff maybe wraiths /aspects in there if you'd actually take one. And if you go bare bones the only output is peashooter 2 shuri canon shots.. So again..

Don't get me wrong, Its is a really good unit for CWE as its very utilitarian.
But by no means is it what it used to be, and simply doesn't really cut the mustard anymore simply becasue of the cost of it and the infantry bodies you would then pay pts to take.

My bad. I misunderstood what point you were making. Your post made it seem like you were arguing that having a transport capacity of 12 was somehow a mark against the wave serpent. I see now that you were arguing that the best units you can put inside a wave serpent are wraith units/the usefulness of a serpent is diminished by the lack of efficient infantry units that could benefit from riding in a serpent. That's pretty fair. Most of our infantry units could use a boost. However, I'd point out that that's really more of an issue with units other than the serpent rather than with the serpent itself. If fire dragons were as good as eradicators, the wave serpent would get them in position to do their thing pretty reliably. If banshees were scary good at melee, our opponents would be frsutrated by how much shooting they have to put into the serpent before they can take a crack at the banshees.

We may have different philosophies here but I kinda have to disagree about taking seprents bare bones cheap. Whats the point you are paying pts for maybe some MW output, at which pints you sacrifice the durability you pay pts for.. Might as well take a falcon if you want cheap transport and at least it will lay down some dakka from range with EC it will do some serious hurt.

Not sure if this part is in response to me or someone else. My wave serpents usually come in around 190ish points. I like to give them spirit stones, anti-tank guns, shuricannons, and maybe CTMs. Or else I take vectored engines, spirit stones, and 9 shots worth of shuriken cannons. So I'm not one to tell people to go cheap on their serpents. I was saying that neither of the craftworld transports are cheap, and that a lack of cheap transports really changes how said transports can be used in lists. We can't really do mechanized MSU in transports the way drukhari or harlequins can because each of our transports costs twice as much as a weaver or raider. And while the serpent has as much transport capacity as two weavers, you're still concentrating your threat (and points) into one place (and making yourself susceptible to effects that are good at killing tough units efficiently) rather than spreading out your presence.

If my craftworlders had something like a venom, I might be tempted to run a bunch of mounted aspects like fire dragons and dark reapers and dire avengers in them. I could spread them out across the table and reliably make use of their offense. Maybe I even have the points to spare to field some banshees or what have you in a vaguely incubi-esque role. But because three wave serpents is about 600 points, I can't really spread myself out like that. Each of those three serpents has to be carrying units that want to be going in roughly the same direction.

Does that make any sense? I feel like I'm rambling. tldr; I don't disagree that there are things in the meta that give wave serpents a rough time. The things that want to ride in serpents could stand to be better. But I still feel that wave serpents are pretty good for their cost.

I guess we all sort of saying the same thing lol.