Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

stealth992 wrote:Hmm, you said they only get a 4+ cover save? I wish I knew the rules well enough of skimmers to be able to call people on what they're doing. The person I was playing against apparently 'knows the rules' and claims to have a 3+ cover save on his wave serpent.

A 3+ save is for turbo boosting bikes. Flat out skimmers, like a Wave Serpent, are only 4+.

On topic, like many have said, forcing a lot of dice on the seer council is the way to go.

I'd say Powerguy hit the nail on the head. Every turn, drive a Rhino up and block the rear hatch of the Wave Serpent. Either he winds up too far away to assault, or you keep preventing him from disembarking without moving the Serpent, which stops him from assaulting out of it.

This trick alone is why Mech BA do such dirty things to Eldar.

The issue is the trick only works against Eldar players who are STILL stuck in 4th edition and/or make heavy use of Banshees, Scorpions and Foot Councils to try and assault out of vehicles. Optimized Eldar lists are focused on shooting (i.e Dragons) for this exact reason, they can move, jump out and do damage without the need to set up a charge. Imo the only Eldar assault units worth considering are JetCouncils (which are obvious rock/Deathstar units which get crushed by certain matchups) and Harlies in a Foot based list (since they can actually make it safely to combat without a transport). Eldrad and Autarchs with Power Weapons also get used a bit, but they basically just get thrown into combat as speedbumps, they aren't really assault threats.

Mech BA isn't that good against Eldar, most of the time I would back a good Mech Eldar list against a Razorspam BA list. Serpents don't care about Assault Cannons, and Eldar still have the mobility advantage against Las/Plas Razors (as well as a durability advantage) and Dragons + side shots can deal with Predators. You also have to factor in things like the height of the weapon mounts on Eldar vehicles vs Imperial vehicles, its much harder to get cover against skimmers since they are so much higher up. BA Jumpers on the other hand are basically impossible to deal with as Eldar, they can't punch through 3+/4+++ on 30+ guys which are basically as fast as them.

DaddyWarcrimes wrote:I'd say Powerguy hit the nail on the head. Every turn, drive a Rhino up and block the rear hatch of the Wave Serpent.

Yeah, this is a super unreliable strategy though. You're talking about blocking a vehicle JUST-SO, when said vehicle can move 24" and fly over terrain and intervening units, and the other only moves 12" and can't, and is made of glorified cardboard.

Tiger9gamer wrote:I did what most of the people said to do and had 30 marines, a dakka pred, and a typhoon speeder unload onto the jerks, and Nothing scoured a wound or a kill. he then Curb stomp cato and didn't take a single wound. How fo my fail marines fight against that?

Well, the first thing you need is better dice. Cato and 30 dudes against roughly 6 T3 guys without power weapons shouldn't have that kind of results with average rolling. Secondly, are you bringing power fists like you're supposed to?

Thirdly, actually USE your combat tactics. If you lose any given round of close combat on your turn, then you really should try and make an escape. If there's one thing that will help alleviate the effects of a single bad round of unloading with everything you have, it's getting the chance to unload on him with everything you have a second time.

about your "part a rhino behind the serpent" plan. On the Eldars next turn, all they need to do is pivot the serpent and let everyone out.

According to the rules as they are written, pivoting a tank in place does not count as moving either.

So you would in fact need to park 4 rhinos around the serpent.

Shadowseer_Kim wrote:about your "part a rhino behind the serpent" plan. On the Eldars next turn, all they need to do is pivot the serpent and let everyone out.

According to the rules as they are written, pivoting a tank in place does not count as moving either.

So you would in fact need to park 4 rhinos around the serpent.

Pivoting does count as moving for the purposes of assaulting after disembarkation, as stated on page 67 of the BRB, in the first bullet point of 'Disembarking'.

Still, I'd like to see how a rhino would be able to drive all the way around a serpent in the first place, much less seeing the same eldar player fall for it twice in a row.

Ailaros wrote:Still, I'd like to see how a rhino would be able to drive all the way around a serpent in the first place, much less seeing the same eldar player fall for it twice in a row.

The reason its possible is because getting an assault from the rear hatch is just as delicate, if not moreso. The ability to move 24" and ignore terrain in the way makes absolutely no difference in this case, because all that does is SET UP the assault. You can't move, disembark and assault from a Serpent, so your opponent always gets a chance to react and counter no matter where you end up after moving.

A Serpent is 7" long, so with a 2" disembark + 6" move you end up roughly level with the front of the Serpent (as you have to go around it slightly, you can't run under it). This gives you a threat range of 6-12" in front of the Serpent (depending on whether or not Eldrad is in the mix, which I believe he was in this case), but realistically any half decent player isn't going to rely on a high run roll to get them into assault anyway. This means that in order to avoid being assaulted a Rhino would only need to be 8 or so inches from the front of the Serpent (moving 12" + probably Smoke gives reasonable protection if you miscalculate and if worst comes to worst its just a Rhino). From there a 12" move, pivot and 2" disembark gets you a guy behind the rear hatch (and able to shoot if you are happy to deal with the Council out in the open and able to do things next turn). In this case you might not completely block it, but there is no way you are going to get a full squad out the back if the exit is even partially blocked, I know from experience that getting 11 man Storm Guardian units out of a Serpent takes up almost all the available room to begin with.

Essentially with such a small threat range your error margin for positioning the Serpent is basically non existent, particularly when you throw in other variables. If the Serpent was slightly too close (which is more likely considering its generally better than being too far away) including possibly pivoting slightly side on to get the hatch closer, which I see quite a bit, then moving to block it becomes incredibly easy, you usually don't have to disembark at all (its far easier to do than you might think). If you are talking about a Blood Angel Rhino then obviously its incredibly easy to do since you are fast. You can do this with any standard closed topped transport actually, its just safer with MEQ if you end up having to get out. If you end up about 9-10" in front of the Serpent, then you can still move, disembark and run and easily block the hatch. However at about this range band you run into the situation where you can actually ignore the Serpent completely, since you can just back up slightly and completely avoid the charge (you don't even have to move that far/fast, you can often still shoot).

Obviously there are quite a few things which can change this scenario, but at the end of the day you always end up in a game of cat and mouse, where if the Serpent ends up too close it gets blocked, and if its too far out then it gets ignored and has to re-position anyway. Things get worse if you factor in that Imperial transports tend to be cheaper/more numerous than Eldar transports. Its not a case of the Eldar player not falling for it, its just very very hard to get exactly where you need to be with the Serpent and against someone who knows these tactics you are basically always going to get boxed in.

I just remembered, going into cc with elderad and warlocks is not a good idea for my marines or my terminators because elderad has a power weapon. Combined with those saves, even though he's attacking three times per turn, he is usually winning the assaults, slowly but surely. 89 percent invulnerable save on a character that always wounds on twos with a power weapon, capable of casting three spells per turn, and not to mention runes of warding... is simply ridiculous. This means my only chance is again small arms firepower and not close combat. Unless maybe I get a full surround with 10+ khorn berzerkers after rapid firing the squad with 40 csm the turn before. But of course I would never get that opportunity because he isn't a stupid player. He puts his squad in a strategic location where I cannot maximize my retaliation due to my lack of mobility. Perhaps if I brought LoS, but I'm not about to sell my soul just to win a game of 40k.

On a side note to my rant, I'm really hoping for feel no pain nurgle terminators in the new codex! XD


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Powerguy I just read what you said and I like it. I'm going to try and use it the next time Eldar attempts to move flat out and land in the middle of my army. Thx for the advice.

Try noise marines a full squad standing still is 30 shots plus the doom siren str5 ap3 template or a lash sorceror when they jump out of their transport back your noise marines up then lash them away into a nice tight bundle then dakka them with everything if your sorcerors head doesn't blow up you should be able to keep them out of combat for a turn or 2 alternitively try using gift of chaos and turn eldrad into a spawn the odds of it working are slim but it bypasses his 3++ save. Without ulthran the rest should be easy to take care of


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Plus the look ob your opponents face when eldrad gets dpawned would be priceless

Powerguy wrote:A Serpent is 7" long

And herein lies the problem. If the serpent is 7" long, and it's also rather wide, and needs to be driven around, AND you have to basically seal off the back hatch in its entirety (5 models isn't that hard to sneak out the side of the rear hatch), that means that you basically have to start the round in base contact with the vehicle in order to move the 7" forward, and probably a total of 3 or 4" laterally back and forth.

Not only is it practically impossible unless your opponent is running a transport straight into your stuff in such a way where there is a rhino to his rear already, but add to this the fact that the rhino in question needs to survive. Were I an eldar player and saw a rare, but real threat of a rhino block, I'd use that shooting phase I moved my transport in to unload with my notorious eldar S6 spam and blow up the transport.

This is a player skill vs. player skill scenario in which the eldar player has to do a lot wrong just to give you the opportunity to do this maneuver, and then has to do even more wrong to allow you to pull it off. Not saying that you shouldn't try if the opportunity ever presents itself, but its way too futzy to be a strategy that you can count on for handling this unit.