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So I was messing around with the Eldar book the other day (metaphorically speaking) and trying out possible, quite nasty combinations. I realised the followed fitted perfectly into 1750 points, as if it was made to be a list.

Spiritseer - 70

5 x DAs in WS w/ TL Scatters, Shuricannon + HFs - 210
5 x DAs in WS w/ TL Scatters, Shuricannon + HFs - 210
5 x DAs in WS w/ TL Scatters, Shuricannon + HFs - 210
5 x DAs in WS w/ TL Scatters, Shuricannon + HFs - 210
5 x DAs in WS w/ TL Scatters, Shuricannon + HFs - 210
5 x DAs in WS w/ TL Scatters, Shuricannon + HFs - 210

Fire Prism w/ Shuircannon + HFs - 140
Fire Prism w/ Shuircannon + HFs - 140
Fire Prism w/ Shuircannon + HFs - 140

Total: 1750

I realise I'm probably not the first to come up with this, but I was pretty interested to gather opinions on whether this was actually viable or not. Now I know, from a glance, it looks absolutely horrible, but, to be honest, you don't have that much shooting. Your DAs will get shot to pieces (depriving you of scoring troops) the moment they get out (5 T3 4+ models won't last long) which leaves you with only the tanks to shoot. I know WSs are great but, since you don't really want to be firing your shields most of the time, you're only kicking out 24 S6 and 18 S6 pseudo-rending. Yes, they're all TL, but against most heavily armoured armies, that won't do much. Though I suppose the Fire Prisms will. And come up against lots of anti-tank, or a fast moving power-fist-in-every-squad army and you're for it.

The more I think about it, the more broken it does seem, but, I think it's just too much of a good thing. No Farseers for support, no Jetbikes/Spiders for fast movement etc

Thoughts?

It is viable, and will flat out stomp certain armies. Mostly the problem is with high armor MC's...which are getting more prevalent. You really can't do much vs even one riptide. There are certain lists that will stomp you unfortunately, but some people do do this. This was the first list to come out of the new codex. It is solid but for me doesn't pack enough tools.

It's a very unbalanced army, and most will fall to it.

That said it isn't going to win any tournaments and will piss most people off.

No consistency whatsoever.

If I'm being honest it's a big mistake that you can even grab that many WS.

Yeah, I thought as much. That was my general feeling: that it'd crush certain armies but struggle against others.

Well, its a viable list. However, your opponent might hate you.

Wave Serpent Spam.
Will anoy most armies to death and have problem with the rest. To much fliers or an opponent that takes out your fire prisms early will make this very hard to play.

Just drop 2 of the serpents and fill in the gaps.

I disagree that you don't want to be firing your shields most turns. Most ranged AT works on stripping hull points rather than 1 shifting so the shield isn't need unless there's melta about.

I think you'll do well against the vast majority of lists. Riptides are tough go kill sure but they don't do much to Wave Serpents and you've enough volume fire to down a Riptide in a turn if you need to. The Serpents alone should put about 5 wounds on a Riptide plus the Fire Prism shots. Trip Dreadknight is more an issue as they'll catch your Serpents and smash them into the ground. But even that is a War of Attrition and you can kill 2 in turn if you get lucky.

Funny you should mention this.

I played against an O'Vesastar at a GT last weekend. Re roll to hit, ordnance, ignore cover and split fire pretty much was killing 1-2 Serpents a turn. I then played a 2nd O'Vesastar in a game and still couldn't really even scratch this unit with shooting.

Flying Monstrous Creature Demons got first turn against me with Night Fight. I had one turn to shoot them apart and spread out. My opponent never failed a grounding test and then crushed 4 Serpents on turn 2. Assault is nasty.

However, massed Wave Serpents did quite well against Necrons and Chaos Marines.

Locally, folks don't want to play against this kind of army as they pretty much play IG, SM of some variety or Chaos Marines-all which Mechdar can do well against.

Over the course of 7 games, it was kind of interesting with this style army: I either lost big or won big. There really was not any close games which I found kind of surprising.

Well, Sarigar, its always nice to play at a GT. As you said, Mechdar can do well vs most enemy armies. Against an FMC army it can be an uphill battle. The problem is that your shooting all comes from the Serpents. But the FMCs are fast enough to herd them into a corner. Then you either decide on shooting or moving away. In both cases, the Serpents can be caught. I play a mechdar list which is a bit different. Integrating some units (FDs or a small Jetseer Council) that can deal with threats like FMCs is key. Against Tau I haven't had problems with my Serpent spam since after the markerlight is gone, Tau have a tough time to scratch heavy skimmers.

Pure Serpent Spam, made worse with more AV12 Skimmer Spam. The list will be boring as hell to play and play against. Its got more great matchups than bad but you won't make any friends.

 Aijec wrote:
It's a very unbalanced army, and most will fall to it.

That said it isn't going to win any tournaments and will piss most people off.

No consistency whatsoever.

If I'm being honest it's a big mistake that you can even grab that many WS.

yes, most will lose to it.

Its probally going to be a better list than any other list there. He will win if hes any good.

Completely consistant, threres 6 serpents.

No its not a mistake, this is the type of top notch list there is.

to OP. you have enough scoreres. leave them in the serpenttill last turn, and by then he opponent will be to diminshed to shoot at 30 of em.

its a great list.

This list will never even touch top 8 at a major GT.

The problem is you have no coverage, your relying on mass str 6 ap- to deal with every army, fire prisms are fairly laughable in terms of the damage they put out.

For major tournaments 2+ rerollable armor, FMC, all do a skip and a hop into killing multiple wave serpents per turn basically an auto win.

This also has a very tough matchup against the normal wave serpent spam with wraithknight support as wraithknights jumping on wave serpents is basically a dead wave serpent.

Add to that taudar, and O'vesa star start deleting serpents turn 1 and you basically have a bad matchup against most of the competative lists made.

Wave serpent spam with 4 serpents 2 knights is already not very good in the tournament scene, taking it too the extreme doesn't help.

I will probably just keep repeating this, but the best eldar lists competatively have 2 wave serpents. You can still win with 3. If you have more than 4 wave serpents you have too many points in units that don't counter the major tournament threats. Wave serpents excell at taking down AV 10-12, they are decent at taking down flyers, and are fairly durable troop holders. Outside of that the eldar codex offers up much better options.

Um, unless you are playing at 2000 pts then you can only have 4 troops. Check the FO.

 Chaos Rising wrote:
Um, unless you are playing at 2000 pts then you can only have 4 troops. Check the FO.

you HAVE to take 2, then you can take 4(?) more.

 raiden wrote:

 Chaos Rising wrote:
Um, unless you are playing at 2000 pts then you can only have 4 troops. Check the FO.

you HAVE to take 2, then you can take 4(?) more.

Raiden is correct. You are allowed between 2 and 6 Troop choices per FOC.

Personally, I would just take Waves Serpents to the extreme and drop the Fire Prisms altogether. Fire Dragons can replace the lost anti-tank. Holo-Fields aren't worth it when you have this many hulls, imo.

Autarch - Fusion Gun

3x5 Fire Dragons - Wave Serpent w/ TL Scatter Laser

5x5 Dire Avengers - Wave Serpent w/ TL Scatter Laser & Shuriken Cannon

This fits nicely into 1750. More Wave Serpents = More Better.

I disagree with Tiber in that this CAN be a good list to field against Deathstars. The competitive 2++/reroll Eldar beatstick requires a single model to soak the hits, you can't do that with the speed this serpent list can produce to counter that 860+ point Council.

Daemons will still give you issues, as will Taudar depending on terrain.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
I disagree with Tiber in that this CAN be a good list to field against Deathstars. The competitive 2++/reroll Eldar beatstick requires a single model to soak the hits, you can't do that with the speed this serpent list can produce to counter that 860+ point Council.

Daemons will still give you issues, as will Taudar depending on terrain.

Taudar give everyone issues