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As in title, Im wondering if Serpent Spam has any bad matchup. Lets say for 1750.

Farseer + jetbike, Mantle, Singing Spear
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
2x War Walkers with Scatter and Bright Lance

No, i dont have such army, but I see it as rather popular list. Could Tau with S7 spam and ignore cover fight against it? Or maybe Demons Flaying Circus? Something else?

Surprisingly, Elder is a good counter. WS are pretty good at dropping WS.

Drop Pod SM do well and I expect the new SM codex will make this more efficient at DP assault.

If someone used that list, they might win but man, what a boring list! Hopefully people have a bit more substance to their lists, but it is good to be prepared for this because there's always someone! lol

As a rule of thumb, units that can deep strike or are fast and manoeverable to hit that rear armour, or anything which ignored cover saves (is the force field counted as a cover save?). Or mass shots to glance the things to death.

About those rear armor I assume that with 60" range and 36" range on other guns, Serpents can just stay at table edge with rear armour, and shoot. Of course after shooting Serpent Shield they are easier to kill, but still its 12 AV with 4+ cover save in open.

Deamon bum rush with fiends, screamers, and corn dogs.

Deamon screamerstar

Cron air with msu warriors and 2 voltiac staffs in 5 units.

Full scarab farm with an aegis that blocks los because scarabs are so short.

IG/SW forge world shinanigans where earthshaker carriages get rerolls to hit from divination and bring it down orders force rerolls on cover saves.

Eldar do well indeed. Serpents are handy enough at the job, but Dark Reapers are the ultimate Serpents counter with Starshot Missiles.

I'm not seeing how Drop Pod SM do well though? They drop, still have to deal with the same crap as if they fired from range, and then the Serpents either run away or blast them to death.

Anything that can quickly rack up glancing hits is a safe bet. You want a lot of decent powered shots rather than a few high Strength ones - so we're talking spamming things like autocannons and plasma guns.

Close combat is also a good bet if you can catch them - especially if you have haywire grenades. If you're attacking with an MC it's actually worth considering whether you'd get more results out of NOT smashing if your Strength and number of Attacks are quite high.

Pod in behind a serpent and melta it in the rear commonly known as going 5th ed on their ass. Might work, might whiff to jink. Serpent shields wont be of too much use.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Pod in behind a serpent and melta it in the rear commonly known as going 5th ed on their ass.

Podding in behind a Serpent usually means mishap, since the common play on Serpents is the keep your ass to the board edge.

 Super Ready wrote:
Close combat is also a good bet if you can catch them - especially if you have haywire grenades. If you're attacking with an MC it's actually worth considering whether you'd get more results out of NOT smashing if your Strength and number of Attacks are quite high.

I would still smash attack, as the serpents shield doesn't protect its rear armour and close combat attacks against vehicles always hit their rear armour. Meaning those S10 smash attacks are auto penetrating AP2 hits that bypass both the serpents shield and its cover save.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Pod in behind a serpent and melta it in the rear commonly known as going 5th ed on their ass.

Podding in behind a Serpent usually means mishap, since the common play on Serpents is the keep your ass to the board edge.

Pods stop at the board edge. Might still whiff because of jink. once the 1st wave of pods land serpents will need to turn their butt away from the board esge to shoot them.

After the new marine dex drops 14 point tac marines with rerolls to hit from ultramarine tac doctrine might become common. 1050 for 60 of them in pods.

 schadenfreude wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Pod in behind a serpent and melta it in the rear commonly known as going 5th ed on their ass.

Podding in behind a Serpent usually means mishap, since the common play on Serpents is the keep your ass to the board edge.

Pods stop at the board edge. Might still whiff because of jink. once the 1st wave of pods land serpents will need to turn their butt away from the board esge to shoot them.

After the new marine dex drops 14 point tac marines with rerolls to hit from ultramarine tac doctrine might become common. 1050 for 60 of them in pods.

Pods do not stop at the board edge, lol. That's a mishap. They stop on everything else, but not the board edge.

Pods don't stop at the board edge. Its the only way they can mishap.

Guard, I think massed high str weapons are best to glance the WS's to death, and with a lot of high str weapons will your opponent want to risk using the shield weapons and risk penterating hits?

We actually built and play tested an anti Wave Serpent list for ATC (it was also our anti Daemon list). Most of you are going to laugh and not believe me, but it worked (it's a rock list though, and has plenty of hard counters).

Blood Angels with BT allies

Mephiston
3 Storm Ravens
Scouts and minimal Assault Marines

Emp Champion
1 Storm Raven
5 man squads

Snap shooting STR6 and 7 is not an effective counter to Storm Ravens.

He only fought one WS list at the ATC though, which he pummelled. He did lose pretty hard to BOLS Footdar list though. (he also annihilated the Daemon Army we put him against)

Zanais wrote:
As in title, Im wondering if Serpent Spam has any bad matchup. Lets say for 1750.

Farseer + jetbike, Mantle, Singing Spear
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
2x War Walkers with Scatter and Bright Lance

No, i dont have such army, but I see it as rather popular list. Could Tau with S7 spam and ignore cover fight against it? Or maybe Demons Flaying Circus? Something else?

Iron curtain.
Only the war walkers can pen av13 qs, shoot them 1st with mass s7 tesla
Mass tesla and gauss can glance ws to death
lords with a scythe in an open topped barge.

Simply shooting at them is a waste of time with almost all options. Even tau removing cover saves still comes up short vs the serpent shields.

Anything fast and with melee potential, that might survive long enough to get there would be the best counter.

Once in melee you bypass the strengths of holofields and the serpent shield.

Obvious choices IMO would be flying MC's or bike squads with krak grenades or melta bombs.

Battlewagon wall- rush with Deffrollas. You can get a LOT of battlewagons into 1750 pts if you keep them cheap.

You would lose a BW or so to the Lances (less so if meks on board to repair as you go) but when you make contact the noise will be satisfying...

If they insist on being resolutely glued to the back board edge this makes it easier. If they are bipping all over the battlefield the side and rear shots may make this a bit less effective.

Serpent spam is one of the best lists in the game right now as it offers large range fire support while in a very defensive shell. Like any spam list, it plays on the idea that your opponent will not have enough specific counters to your threats and you will overwhelm the board.

Here is how my tau would deal with that list.

In my 1750pt tau list I run 3 broadsides with hymp and target locks and 6 missile drones. I also run a buffing commander. When I face serpent spam I put my crisis suits in reserves/behind los blocking cover and deploy my commander with my broadsides. Thanks to tank hunter and ignore cover my broadside team can take out 3 wave serpents a turn (2 broadsides fire at one serpent does 8 x .75 x .55 = 3.3hp, 1 broadside + quadgun at a serpent does 8 x .75 x .55 = 3.3hp and 6 missile drones at a serpent does 12 x .55 x .55 = 3.63hp) The commander can also take a ton of punishment before needing to do lookout sir rolls. He can tank on average 27 wounds before dropping to his last wound, this realistically represents about 36 shots from the wave serpents. Assuming each wave serpent does on average 8 shots a turn (4 scatter laser and 4 serpent shield) it will take at least 5 of the serpents to put out enough shots that will make the commander have to start passing off wounds. If the serpents try to stay out of 36'' range they will (assuming 4 hits from serpent shields) only do 1.3 wounds to my commander, if all 6 shoot at him and the broadsides. If the serpents try to avoid my broadsides I can move them up and still do a bit of damage to the Serpents, missile drones will kill one and all three broadsides will do about 2hp to another (assuming no markerlights to boost bs). With the ethereal giving zephry's grace my broadsides have an effective 45'' range. My 1750pt list also has 2 riptides which are pretty free to move up field to attempt to smash the serpents or blast them if they use serpent shields. The serpents are extremely bad at handling riptides. 4 scatter laser shots will do about .23 wounds to a riptide and the serpent shield (averaged at 4 shots) will do .48 wounds. So a serpent shooting all it's weapons at a riptide will either fail to wound it or only do one wound.

Basically my strategy is to put up a 2+ armor wall with broadsides and riptides that the serpents have to try and bust through. Because of their high AP value the serpents struggle with taking out 2+ saves. Though I feel like I can combat a serpent spam list. I do not think I have the advantage, things like night fight can sway the match-up in my favor and them getting the initiative can sway it in theirs.

But the problem with the serpent spam list presented is it can not deal with land raider spam and no those two warwalkers are not enough. If you went against a list with 3 land raiders the serpent spam list simply could not win. Even a necron list with a-barges and ghost arks would be a tough nut to crack. I feel that 6 serpents at 1750 is just too much and leaves you defenseless against some match ups. Basically you get to beat up against most list but have no chance against a few others.

I'll have to recomend deathwing in Land Raiders or blood angels AV13 spam to a lesser degree, there is only two bright lances in there that can even hurt them so the Land raiders can simply drive forward and when they are close enough dissembark the terminators and crush the tanks.

3 helldrakes will make short work of Wave serpent if they dare to advance...

Necrons really like this match up, if he would get one or two wraithknights in the list would already be more scary

DoA is the hard counter to Serpent Spam. 50 or 60 Assault Marines will have the speed to reach the Serpents and the table footprint to stop them from running away. Swarming the transports in assault and wrecking them with massed krak grenades will bring them down in a hurry.

The list can't beat anything else in the current meta with any degree of reliability, though.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Simply shooting at them is a waste of time with almost all options. Even tau removing cover saves still comes up short vs the serpent shields.

This is largely false as the 4+ cover effectively gives them 6hp. Using marker lights to remove cover makes the shields useless if you can cause 3 glances. The shield does not ignore damage results, it makes pens into glances, which still remove hull points.

@ valek - IDK how you can justify the statement that 3 heldrakes can make short work of wave serpents. If the serpents remain 36"+ from the board edge, you cannot vector strike upon arrival. Twin linked lasers follow by twin linked shield shots will actually make short work of heldrakes.

The best way to handle serpents is fast assault units with built in redundancy. Bikers with krak grenades, spawn, corn dogs, FMC's, whatever you have that's fast and can survive to catch them in assault.

High RoF weapons that can glance them out are your next best option. Don't try for 1 shot kills against the shield, try for 3 glances getting through their cover save.

Zanais wrote:
As in title, Im wondering if Serpent Spam has any bad matchup. Lets say for 1750.

Farseer + jetbike, Mantle, Singing Spear
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
10x Guardian in Serpent with Holo, Shuri.Cannon,Scatter Lasser
2x War Walkers with Scatter and Bright Lance

No, i dont have such army, but I see it as rather popular list. Could Tau with S7 spam and ignore cover fight against it? Or maybe Demons Flaying Circus? Something else?

Any army that can spam Land Raiders would be a pretty hard counter to that list. It's got literally two weapons that can hurt AV14.


Necron Flying Circus will also reliably punk that list, since you're usually only glancing AV12 with S7 weapons anyway. Lots and lots of Tesla fire is one way to glance-kill them rather quickly. They're stuck snapfiring at you, which is a pretty crappy proposition.

 hyv3mynd wrote:
Twin linked lasers follow by twin linked shield shots will actually make short work of heldrakes.

Math disagrees.
3 shots on a 6, 0 hit, reroll, 1 hit.
d6+1=5 shots on a 6, 1 hit, reroll, 2 hits. (slightly generous)

1 S6 needs a 6 to glance, nothing.
2 hits need a 5 to glance, 1 glance.
5+ to ignore, probably not.

On average it'd take 4 Serpents to drop a drake. If you fail, he can regen one of those hull points. I wouldn't call that "short work".

 Valek wrote:
3 helldrakes will make short work of Wave serpent if they dare to advance...

And why would they be stupid enough to advance? A Serpent can greatly dictate what a Drake can and can't do to it rather easily.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 Valek wrote:
3 helldrakes will make short work of Wave serpent if they dare to advance...

And why would they be stupid enough to advance? A Serpent can greatly dictate what a Drake can and can't do to it rather easily.

Hell Drakes are not a good counter to WSs at all, to the point where advancing is in fact not stupid. When I play with serpents vs Hell Drakes I position them to be vector struck so that I can shoot the rear armour in my turn. The Vector strike is only likely to cause 1 glance and the W.Serpent needs to be shooting the rear AV10 to stand a chance of downing it.

Drop pods are not going to work IMO unless the Eldar player is silly enough to leave you space to drop in his reaer arc.

The list in the OP cant deal with AV13-14 but its safe to assume that a good Serpent spam list will have some Fire Dragons or S10 Wraith weapons. Necron AV13 spam might still work but im not sure about LRs.


The best way to take out Serpents is in CC. Deamons do this best.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 Valek wrote:
3 helldrakes will make short work of Wave serpent if they dare to advance...

And why would they be stupid enough to advance? A Serpent can greatly dictate what a Drake can and can't do to it rather easily.

because a wise player with drakes will put the models on the board in a postiion where you will have to come with 36 to get use of your scatter lasers. For one or two WS's not a issue, if spamming them then a few will have to come that bit closer.

3 land raiders filled with marines. Loyalist would be best so they could combat squad out of the serpents and assault all serpents at once.

Use mars-pattern land raiders so your also brining 6 LCs to deal with the war walkers.

You should have points left over as well.

rigeld2 wrote:

 hyv3mynd wrote:
Twin linked lasers follow by twin linked shield shots will actually make short work of heldrakes.

Math disagrees.
3 shots on a 6, 0 hit, reroll, 1 hit.
d6+1=5 shots on a 6, 1 hit, reroll, 2 hits. (slightly generous)

1 S6 needs a 6 to glance, nothing.
2 hits need a 5 to glance, 1 glance.
5+ to ignore, probably not.

On average it'd take 4 Serpents to drop a drake. If you fail, he can regen one of those hull points. I wouldn't call that "short work".

Close, but scatter lasers have 4 shots each.

The OP list has 6 serpents, all of which should be out of VS range when the drakes arrive. I'd call killing 1.5 heldrakes before they can vector strike a good deal.