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A friend of mine who plays Eldar recently put together the Wave Serpent and War Walker he got in the battleforce. I'm pretty sure he put two Brightlances on the Wave Serpent which he likes to put his Dire Avengers in and i think he put two Scatter Lasers on the War Walker. Is this pure idiocy? I think he should have done it the other way around, making the Wave Serpent anti-infantry and the War Walker anti-tank. Can anyone say "yay" or "nay" to that?

The twinlinkation of the serpents helps to hit with those bright lances. And the War Walkers can put out a huge load of shots with high rate of fire weapons. So it's not pure idiocy.

Afaik, there were a handful of thread discussing the load out of a serpent. And if the serpent has to be geared towards the same target as the passengers.

Greets
Schepp himself

Three guided Warwalkers with scatterlasers are awesome:
24 shots and 18 hits.
They can take on MEQ or light tanks.

Serpents are a different story. Brightlances are certainly an options since many SM and CSM armies use Landraiders these days.
The cheaper variants, shuricannons or scatterlasers, are good vs light tanks or shooting remnants.

What I'm sort of getting at is that if he put some anti-infantry stuff on the Wave Serpent, it could provide some fire support for his Dire Avengers. Also, if he made his War Walker anti-infantry, if it gets into close combat with infantry at least it can defend itself with WS 3 and S 5, so I guess its not pure idiocy, after all both vehicles heave rear armour of 10. But then again, I personally would have used the Wave Serpent as fire support for the Dire Avengers, seeing as how he likes to use it to transport them. I'm also not the least bit concerned about point costs, after all he only has a small collection and he mainly only plays against me (i play SM) and another one of our friends who plays as Imperial Guard.

The current edition War Walker and Waveserpent models should not have the main weapons glued on.

Once you have swapable weapons try some variety. Do not worrit over what is best, variety is actually what is best as it extends the longevity of the game.

Multifunction Waveserpents are Waveserpents you don't tire of, this is a far better bonus than the minimaxed % points/target optimisation; which will be included in the mix somewhere anyway.

The waveserpent's weapons are twin linked, so since the bright lance is a single shot anti tank weapon it is actually the better weapon to make twin linked in many ways. His choice is not in the slightest idiotic, your friend actually made the better choice if those two vehicels are going to be taking those two weapons. The dire avenger squad inside the serpent should do fine agaisnt infantry but is lacking any way to take out any kind of armor at all. Thats what the bright lance on the serpent will do for the DAs, give them a way to crack open a transport.

If point costs are important, then putting the BL on the serpent is an excellent choice.

Of course, making the weapons switchable is the best option.



Sliggoth

I usually cross-arm my transports. Anti-tank weapons on carriers of squads without AT weapons, and Anti-personnel on fire dragon transports. For banshees and scorpions I can pop a transport and than charge the unit inside, Dire Avengers pop and shoot, and Fire Dragons, the same reversed.

In general the only way to get a reasonably high volume of AT shots in an Eldar army is to put BL on every WS you can. Not everything requires a huge volume of AT shots, and this configuration is pretty pricy, so it's not always the choice configuration. Having said that, if you're putting a combat squad (not just a cheap mountable scorer) of Dire Avengers on the board, they tend to be pretty killy versus basic infantry, which means that putting more anti infantry on their transport probably gets diminishing returns.

Consider: A 10-man squad of DAs with a dual catapult exarch with Bladestorm puts out 33 shots the turn it disembarks. Compare that to the 4 shots maximum you're going to get on a WS (although we shouldn't forget that regardless of main weapon it has the front-mounted shuriken weapon as well), and it starts to look wise to be able to put a wound or a hit on something that's not going to be threatened by the DAs themselves, such as a tank or MC. The weapon that does best in that role is the Bright Lance, particularly when it has a high chance of hitting the target. It would be nice, for example, when trying to pop a land raider or rhino full of marines - WS pops the tank, DAs drop the troops.

Of course, if you're facing an ork horde maybe you're better off with the extra shots. Context always matters.

The real problems your friend is getting around is that AT War Walkers are 1) expensive, 2) inaccurate, and 3) fragile, which is a terrible combination of attributes. They're really, really killy when they hit, but sweet jebus are they fragile, and you lose a lot of firepower just to BS3. I've played around with using Star Engines and minimal-weapon Wave Serpents or Falcons with mounted Farseer/Eldrad to act as both cover and accuracy boost for them, but the combination is really hard to field effectively. A squad of Scatter Laser Walkers delivers 4 times the shots at at 33% points reduction, and the only thing you lose is AT capability - they're still great for anti-MEQ/TEQ/MC from sheer volume of S6 fire and tear up infantry like it's nobody's business, and better yet they do it at 36" range, so they're still soaking up long-range (ie AT) firepower if the enemy bothers to shoot at them at all.

For me personally,

I like using the twin linked bright lances on all my Wave Serpents - giving it the busting capabilities as I ferry around my Dire Avengers, Scorpions, Banshees or Dragons to take care of infantry or whatever else is bothering me..

And with the protection of the energy field - the Wave Serpent is very survivable.

As for the War Walkers - I think scatter lasers x2 is the most popular way to go.. but I personally like the versatility of scatter laser and eldar missle launcher.

So, to answer your questions.. I would say 'yay' to your friends choices - but in the end its all about personal preference and what you want your units to do.

If those are the only options, then your friend made the right choices.

However, I no longer quip all of my WS with BLs, because they are only better than EML when facing AV13 or 14, not including Monoliths.

A majority of the time EMLs do just as well as BLs at popping vehicles (facing AV12 or less...which is most vehicles in the game, especially since they have the speed to get to side/rear armor). This allows you to field EML + Shurican WS for the 5 points less than one with a BL...only now it can be multipurpose.

Daaagh! Double post..

Daamn you computer... Daaaaaaaaaaamn you!

I'm the friend that made the choice and i'd like to just say also gave the wave serpent the hull mounted shuriken cannon upgrade which is pretty good against infantry even tho it's only hull mounted which can be annoying seeing as the access point is at the back and like people have said above i put the bright lance there because it's twinlinked and only 1 shot, also i'd like to clarify that i in fact put a 2 starcannons not scatterlasers because as you said i play you and your SM army alot.

Well, I'd give all Serpents scatter lasers or shuricannons,
similarly for War Walkers.
These weapons are very flexible, they can penetrate side armor (e.g., Rhinos or Predators) and kill MEQ.