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I recently got some wave serpents and i was wondering what to give them.

The ones i'm using for fire dragons should just have shuriken cannons, to be the cheapest they can be seeing as they are being used for suicide units right?

But i was thinking of giving the other ones EML's seeing as they seem the best for points.

please help

All of my waveserpents are EML and spirit stones. Even if you declare your dragons suicide, something that I don't really recommend and it -is- possible to keep them alive, the WS is still hard as nails, and you'll want the extra EMLs. They are 130 points each with this set up, shuri-cannons aren't all that much cheaper but the effectiveness drops like a rock.

Fire dragons don't have to be a suicide unit:

linky

As you can see from the pictures, all my wave serpents are scatterlaser + shuriken cannon, so they can stand off and shoot, or close to midrange, and really pour on the str6 fire. With only BS3, more shots is generally better for Eldar tanks. Once you start to get 3-4+ wave serpents configured this way on the table, you can really wreck any infantry and any vehicle of AR10-11. I don't bother with spirit stones or other upgrades.

Thank you for your advice

I do not really need the extra anti infantry on the serpents as i normally have 3 to 6 war walkers with scatter lasers.

With the scatter lasers on the walkers, the serpents i have normally transport my fire dragons to nuke things with tough armour 13 or 14 stuff my lasers cant get through

These things normally hold very scary stuff like terminators which is why my dragons are normally suicidal.

Yeah, that's kind of my point. Many players look at a unit of fire dragons in a wave serpent as only doing one thing: suicide runs on AR13-14 tanks.

That's way too limited an approach for me personally. I'd rather spend the extra 20 points and have a multi-functional unit that can operate as a stand-off gunboat or contribute significant fire to supplement my scatter laser warwalkers (one scatterlaser/shurikencannon wave serpent fires almost as many str6 shots as a war walker, and has an easier time getting side and rear shots).

And it can still make suicide runs on AR13-14 vehicles if necessary, but then still remain a threat afterward if it isn't destroyed.

I personally like scatters on my serpents.

If your lacking longrange anti tank you can throw in some rockets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kura wrote:All of my waveserpents are EML and spirit stones. Even if you declare your dragons suicide, something that I don't really recommend and it -is- possible to keep them alive, the WS is still hard as nails, and you'll want the extra EMLs. They are 130 points each with this set up, shuri-cannons aren't all that much cheaper but the effectiveness drops like a rock.

I disagree. If your serpent doesnt move 12 your getting assulted or ur not avoiding meltas.and blasters.

Fire Dragons shouldnt ever be alive at the end of the game with the exception being kill points.

Against any army in any match up your fire dragons should make.a.bline strait for the 3 most dangerous things on ur opponents list.

If you dont do this your not capitlizing on early game momentum nor are you hindering their firepower or mobility.

I strongly agree with Flavius' general point.

Suicide FD's on a LR? Good deal.

Fish of Fury 2x FD's, pop LR, then dump firepower from the second FD unit and both WS into the revealed Termies with little to no chance of a retaliatory charge? MUCH better deal!

Tuagh wrote:I strongly agree with Flavius' general point.

Suicide FD's on a LR? Good deal.

Fish of Fury 2x FD's, pop LR, then dump firepower from the second FD unit and both WS into the revealed Termies with little to no chance of a retaliatory charge? MUCH better deal!

Because terminators with no mobility cause a threat?

Fire dragons are anti mobility and anti threats to your mobility.

Destroyed unit > Neutralized unit > Active unit.

Especially when KP are involved, being able to move further left on that spectrum is advantageous. Mobility preservation is a high priority, but unless you are going full DAVU and never intend to leave your transports it is not the ONLY priority.

Hell, as long as you aren't going DAVU send your serpents out in DA/FD teams of 2. Fish them, then POP goes the transport, bladestorm the meaty center, and then use the WS guns to either finish off stragglers or to suppress other nearby vehicles. Weather return fire with cover from fishing, then pack up and repeat as often as possible.

My Serpents get stones and scatter lasers, as these weapons are very flexible (anti-infantry and anti-light tank9;
they can even take down tanks like Predators by side shots,
and they have range enough to shoot from the 1st round on
(while shuricannons are too short ranged to do this).

At first I was using mix of EMLs and ShuriCans. Then I tried Scatters and was really surprised how good this setup was. Currently I go all Scatters, maybe ShuriCans on FD's serpents depending on points.
I love my skimmers to remain mobile so stones all around.

Edit:
Wow Flavius. This serpent / Dragons tactics is very nice. I kinda feel dumb not to think about this earlier. I always try to make my FD not dead - but usually by other means. That one seems nice and quite easy to pull off. Definitely will try this next game.

I tried the dragon fish tactic to some sucess today. Only problem is I was facing a DOA blood angel list lol

Sorry. Search isn't telling me what Fish of Fury is.
Can someone point me to an explanation?

It's a Tau army set up/tactic , mech I believe. Don't play Tau so don't know too much about it.

I'm agreeing with the star engine and EML wave serpents, occasionally throwing in the odd brightlance. Keep the force mostly mobile and in transports, haven't had to use any fire prisms yet either as though they have some nice firepower they're a bit slow for the rest of the force at times. Nothing like letting the enemy get into position, then zoom off to counter it entirely.

Skinnereal wrote:Sorry. Search isn't telling me what Fish of Fury is.
Can someone point me to an explanation?

Its a Tau tactic originally from 4th edition. Basically the rules for skimmers back then meant you could jump out the back and shoot underneath without worrying about TLoS or giving cover and could avoid being assaulted (and I possibly shot I think but I can't remember exactly). With Fire Warriors this was obviously pretty helpful because they are great if you can drop them in rapid fire range and not have to worry about being assaulted in return, but it obviously worked for any close range shooting unit which uses skimmer transports including Avengers and Dragons. It doesn't work quite as well now as you can't automatically see under skimmers, so you usually need to angle them to shoot round the side, which means you usually need a second skimmer to block the unit off properly as Flavius shows.

Skinnereal wrote:Sorry. Search isn't telling me what Fish of Fury is.
Can someone point me to an explanation?

linky

Article with pictures of the tactic adapted for fire dragons.

Thanks loads. Fish of Fury didn't come up with much, but dragonfish is what I needed.

Looks to do the job.

It's not a magic bullet that will save your dragons every time. There's still a lot of AP4 guns out there, and I do sometimes lose one of those serpents and the dragons get charged anyway. And sometimes you do have to just sacrifice them to get a high-priority target.

But I too often see Eldar players throw away their dragons needlessly, when it would have been just as effective to have gotten out on the other side of the transport.