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The problem with the wave serpent is it makes the falcon which costs more pointless.

The wave serpent puts out more firepower[due to the shield] and has more transport capacity.

You can take a falcon with pulsar/bright lance and shuricannon.

over 2 rounds of firing it will average the following hits-
Pulse laser- 2.6 hits
Bright Lance- 1.2 hits
Shuricannon- 4 hits

Wave serpent with twin linked bright lance, shuricannon
Serpent Shields- 3 hits
Bright Lance- 1.33 hits
Shuricannon- 4 hits

On top of this most people wont take bright lances on a wave serpent, as being specialized at firing is usually better than being diversified. Ie if you you can fire a bunch of shots that are good at killing infantry or tanks, its better then firing some shots that are good at killing infantry and some that are good at killing tanks.

This in mind lets look at waveserpents with twin linked shuricannon, and shuricannon over 2 rounds

Serpent shields- 3 hits [only fires 1 time in two turns]
Twin Linked shuricannon- 5.3 hits
Shuricannon- 4 hits.

Falcon as above- 145
1st waveserpent-130
Anti infantry waveserpent-125

Both falcon and serpent have the same armor, both are fast skimmer tanks, falcon can only carry 6 models, serpent carries 12. Falcon takes a hvy support slot for 1, you can buy a wave serpent as a DT for almost any unit in codex. Serpent shield has much longer range than any of the other weapons listed. Serpent shield ignores cover and causes pinning, its ap is - and its strengthy is 1 lower than a pulsar laser.

Which would you rather buy?

No one would say falcon.

Does this mean the falcon is bad? Its pretty good for its points cost, the problem is the wave serpent is too good for its points cost.

its worth noting in epic the serpent shield had the effective range of slightly more than a bolter.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

BaalSNAFU wrote:
Playing devils advocate but by buffing the Serpents, didn't Kelly make Eldar more Grav Tank oriented? And sure Kelly plays favorites, but he's nowhere near as bad as Vetock.

TBF the only really bad things that vetock did was the riptide and changing markerlights.

And markerlights could be made a good deal more reasonable by changing it from "2 tokens ignores cover" to "each token used reduces cover save by 1" This could be done before gtg was decided thus giving players the option to still boost their cover save instead of just ignoring the rule.

MLs used to just give -1 cover per light which no one complained about. In fact no one complained about tau in 6th until the codex came out. Sometimes people are just looking for stuff to complain about though, increasing BS is a good example because we could always do that and nobody complained.

Did people complain about that in the new dex? I remember the complaints about 2-hits = Ignores all cover, and I certainly remember ML hits = grounding check for FMCs complaints (because it's frelling dumb).

Boosting BS I don't remember complaints about though, except wrt boosting BS of Snap Shots.

Because Phil Kelly loves eldar, and has a lot of pull in the company.

No seriously. The book is amazing...you can tell a lot of passion and enthusiasm went into it.

The fact kelly did it just means he did not get as much push back on balance.

x13rads wrote:
WS w/ Holofields 130pts

Lascannon vs WS
.667 Hit
.334 Pen
.167 Failed Jink
.056 Explodes

Lascannon vs Land Raider
.667 Hit
.111 Pen
.037 Explodes

Makes a Land Raider 40% more likely to survive a single Lascannon

If you can squeak out a 5+ cover save on your Land Raider you are at .012 wich would make it 80% more likely to survive a single Lascannon

*note* left out the Serpent Shield, OOPS! (but really, who doesn't shoot the thing every turn )

Only in the vaccum.
I battled Tau two times in RTTs with my Serpent list.
The Pathfinders were the highest priority targets and they were gone in round 1 in both games. Then the Serpents ruled.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
Playing devils advocate but by buffing the Serpents, didn't Kelly make Eldar more Grav Tank oriented? And sure Kelly plays favorites, but he's nowhere near as bad as Vetock.

Eldar have been grav tank oriented for a while, they certainly were in 3E and 4E with their invinciskimmers, largely still were in 5E since tanks in general were useful (it's just that Eldar tanks weren't as good as they had been).

The problem with the serp shields are that barring AV14 and escalation/apoc they will outshoot ANYTHING for their points in the game. Protect a scoring or melta unit all game if needed, have ridiculous manoeuvrability when combined with the firepower, are a dedicated transport taking up no other slots AND have a 4+ save with holofields... All for under 150pts.
When not shooting the serp shield, anything except necrons with anni barges shooting at it is a monumental cost in firepower just to take down one. They are not even really vulnerable to a melta drop like a LR or monolith if their rear is protected, which is easy to do.
Haywire shots can do the job, but at half the efficiency they have against any other tank due to the 4+.
Their weakness against av14 is quite adequately covered by all the bright lances, st9 lance prisms, fire dragons and wraith guard they can take...
Even without getting side shots, a serp spam can easily glance out av13 without breaking a sweat. This has happened to me on such a scale that it wasn't even funny, losing 4 vindis, 4 baals and a LR (the raider was to a fireprism admittedly) before id even moved.

No I can see no legitimate reason for such an overpowered unit.They make anni barges look eexpensive in comparison and that is almost impossible to do!

Poly Ranger wrote:
The problem with the serp shields are that barring AV14 and escalation/apoc they will outshoot ANYTHING for their points in the game. Protect a scoring or melta unit all game if needed, have ridiculous manoeuvrability when combined with the firepower, are a dedicated transport taking up no other slots AND have a 4+ save with holofields... All for under 150pts.
When not shooting the serp shield, anything except necrons with anni barges shooting at it is a monumental cost in firepower just to take down one. They are not even really vulnerable to a melta drop like a LR or monolith if their rear is protected, which is easy to do.
Haywire shots can do the job, but at half the efficiency they have against any other tank due to the 4+.
Their weakness against av14 is quite adequately covered by all the bright lances, st9 lance prisms, fire dragons and wraith guard they can take...
Even without getting side shots, a serp spam can easily glance out av13 without breaking a sweat. This has happened to me on such a scale that it wasn't even funny, losing 4 vindis, 4 baals and a LR (the raider was to a fireprism admittedly) before id even moved.

No I can see no legitimate reason for such an overpowered unit.They make anni barges look eexpensive in comparison and that is almost impossible to do!

Right.

However, Serpents are very vulnerable in cc. A fast moving army like Daemons could eventually catch them in cc.

Another problem could be Drop Pods with melta weapons especially when the Serpents haven't moved in the first turn and there is not too much terrain to hide them.

Poly Ranger wrote:
The problem with the serp shields are that barring AV14 and escalation/apoc they will outshoot ANYTHING for their points in the game. Protect a scoring or melta unit all game if needed, have ridiculous manoeuvrability when combined with the firepower, are a dedicated transport taking up no other slots AND have a 4+ save with holofields... All for under 150pts.
When not shooting the serp shield, anything except necrons with anni barges shooting at it is a monumental cost in firepower just to take down one. They are not even really vulnerable to a melta drop like a LR or monolith if their rear is protected, which is easy to do.
Haywire shots can do the job, but at half the efficiency they have against any other tank due to the 4+.
Their weakness against av14 is quite adequately covered by all the bright lances, st9 lance prisms, fire dragons and wraith guard they can take...
Even without getting side shots, a serp spam can easily glance out av13 without breaking a sweat. This has happened to me on such a scale that it wasn't even funny, losing 4 vindis, 4 baals and a LR (the raider was to a fireprism admittedly) before id even moved.

No I can see no legitimate reason for such an overpowered unit.They make anni barges look eexpensive in comparison and that is almost impossible to do!

Sounds more like bad luck than anything else. With the optimal loadout of Scatter Lasers TLing the Shield it "should" take an average 4 WSs shooting at an AV13 3 HP vehicle to glace it to death.

edited my mistake because I forgot it was 1d6+1 shots not 1d6

 Mr.Omega wrote:
C) He wrote the abysmal Codex Dark Angels which effectively killed the play style most people people played it for, which was Deathwing.

How did Jeremy Vetock kill Deathwing?


Also, isnt it kinda funny how there actually are no "overpowered codex" writers and hiring one person to write two different codices can have one of them turning up OP and the other underpowered?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

davethepak wrote:
Because Phil Kelly loves eldar, and has a lot of pull in the company.

No seriously. The book is amazing...you can tell a lot of passion and enthusiasm went into it.

You're sarcastic, right? 90% of the fluff is recycled word-for-word from the 4th edition 2006 codex; we have a lot of re-colored art and only a handful of new pictures, and the new models released also werent that many (wraithlord, flyer, farseer, plastic wraithguard) as the amount of stuff that got overhauled back in 2006

 wuestenfux wrote:

Right.

However, Serpents are very vulnerable in cc. A fast moving army like Daemons could eventually catch them in cc.

Another problem could be Drop Pods with melta weapons especially when the Serpents haven't moved in the first turn and there is not too much terrain to hide them.

To be fair, the does apply to every other vehicle in the game as well, and at least Wave Serpents have the raw speed to avoid specific CC threats if they *really really* want to.

 Shandara wrote:

Farseer Anath'lan wrote:
Some would argue that its a sales pitch.

They could've easily made it an Assault Vehicle instead of giving it the shield-shooting and boosted viability of a ton of other units.

I would kill for that. My scorpions and Harlies just sit on a shelf now. I really miss them...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm convinced the 60" range is a mistake, and that it was meant to be 6" - something that hits the enemy the moment before the troops inside get out and engage - and not something that sits on the other side of the board blasting troops out of cover.

I can honestly see this being a thing. It was originally a 0" range (so it would be fired in the shooting phase against models that were base to base with it, kind of like a tau flechette launcher equivalent) and at some point they changed it to a 6" range (or the other way around) and then they just stacked the two numbers together.

Or else they just messed up the typesetting somehow.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm convinced the 60" range is a mistake, and that it was meant to be 6" - something that hits the enemy the moment before the troops inside get out and engage - and not something that sits on the other side of the board blasting troops out of cover.

I can honestly see this being a thing. It was originally a 0" range (so it would be fired in the shooting phase against models that were base to base with it, kind of like a tau flechette launcher equivalent) and at some point they changed it to a 6" range (or the other way around) and then they just stacked the two numbers together.

Or else they just messed up the typesetting somehow.

Yeah, it was supposed to be a 6" 1d6+10 model .

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm convinced the 60" range is a mistake, and that it was meant to be 6" - something that hits the enemy the moment before the troops inside get out and engage - and not something that sits on the other side of the board blasting troops out of cover.

I can honestly see this being a thing. It was originally a 0" range (so it would be fired in the shooting phase against models that were base to base with it, kind of like a tau flechette launcher equivalent) and at some point they changed it to a 6" range (or the other way around) and then they just stacked the two numbers together.

Or else they just messed up the typesetting somehow.

Yeah, it was supposed to be a 6" 1d6+10 model .

The sad part is I don't actually know if that would be better or worse...

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm convinced the 60" range is a mistake, and that it was meant to be 6" - something that hits the enemy the moment before the troops inside get out and engage - and not something that sits on the other side of the board blasting troops out of cover.

I can honestly see this being a thing. It was originally a 0" range (so it would be fired in the shooting phase against models that were base to base with it, kind of like a tau flechette launcher equivalent) and at some point they changed it to a 6" range (or the other way around) and then they just stacked the two numbers together.

Or else they just messed up the typesetting somehow.

Yeah, it was supposed to be a 6" 1d6+10 model .

The sad part is I don't actually know if that would be better or worse...

You're right. I'm going to have to think about this.

x13rads wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
The problem with the serp shields are that barring AV14 and escalation/apoc they will outshoot ANYTHING for their points in the game. Protect a scoring or melta unit all game if needed, have ridiculous manoeuvrability when combined with the firepower, are a dedicated transport taking up no other slots AND have a 4+ save with holofields... All for under 150pts.
When not shooting the serp shield, anything except necrons with anni barges shooting at it is a monumental cost in firepower just to take down one. They are not even really vulnerable to a melta drop like a LR or monolith if their rear is protected, which is easy to do.
Haywire shots can do the job, but at half the efficiency they have against any other tank due to the 4+.
Their weakness against av14 is quite adequately covered by all the bright lances, st9 lance prisms, fire dragons and wraith guard they can take...
Even without getting side shots, a serp spam can easily glance out av13 without breaking a sweat. This has happened to me on such a scale that it wasn't even funny, losing 4 vindis, 4 baals and a LR (the raider was to a fireprism admittedly) before id even moved.

No I can see no legitimate reason for such an overpowered unit.They make anni barges look eexpensive in comparison and that is almost impossible to do!

Yeh I was facing 18 serps. We worked out on average they should have taken out 5 of my av13 tanks... but they took out 7 of the 8 that I lost first turn... not too far from the average though tbf...
Sounds more like bad luck than anything else. With the optimal loadout of Scatter Lasers TLing the Shield it "should" take an average 4 WSs shooting at an AV13 3 HP vehicle to glace it to death.

edited my mistake because I forgot it was 1d6+1 shots not 1d6

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Why did my post go into your quote?!? That's weird!
I'll repeat it lol... 'Yeh I was facing 18 serps. We worked out on average they should have taken out 5 of my av13 tanks... but they took out 7 of the 8 I lost first turn... not too far from the average though tbf...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 wuestenfux wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
The problem with the serp shields are that barring AV14 and escalation/apoc they will outshoot ANYTHING for their points in the game. Protect a scoring or melta unit all game if needed, have ridiculous manoeuvrability when combined with the firepower, are a dedicated transport taking up no other slots AND have a 4+ save with holofields... All for under 150pts.
When not shooting the serp shield, anything except necrons with anni barges shooting at it is a monumental cost in firepower just to take down one. They are not even really vulnerable to a melta drop like a LR or monolith if their rear is protected, which is easy to do.
Haywire shots can do the job, but at half the efficiency they have against any other tank due to the 4+.
Their weakness against av14 is quite adequately covered by all the bright lances, st9 lance prisms, fire dragons and wraith guard they can take...
Even without getting side shots, a serp spam can easily glance out av13 without breaking a sweat. This has happened to me on such a scale that it wasn't even funny, losing 4 vindis, 4 baals and a LR (the raider was to a fireprism admittedly) before id even moved.

No I can see no legitimate reason for such an overpowered unit.They make anni barges look eexpensive in comparison and that is almost impossible to do!

Right.

However, Serpents are very vulnerable in cc. A fast moving army like Daemons could eventually catch them in cc.

Another problem could be Drop Pods with melta weapons especially when the Serpents haven't moved in the first turn and there is not too much terrain to hide them.

But if they didn't get 1st turn then they will be ignoring pens from that melta on a 2+ and will have their rear against their board edge AND the melta suicide unit that you used to MAYBE take out the serp costs more than the serp anyway. Out of all tanks fast skimmers are by far and away the hardest to catch. Yes they arw vulnerable in combat IF you can catch them bit all vehicles are. That being their only weakness is not really a significant weakness at all.