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.

What in my army can counter these things! They sit at the very nadir of effectiveness of Dark Lances, which are great against AV 10,11,13 and 14 but have trouble with AV 12, especially when that AV 12 has a 3+ cover save when jinking and has the possibility ti downgrade pens to glances. If i was to do the math, the Wave Serpent has 3 hull points, so I glance on 4+ so i need 6 hits, he has a 3+ jink so i need 18(!!!!) Dark Lance shots to take down a single Wave Serpent via hull points.That simply isn't possible, *EVEN* when they are snap firing they still have the ability destroy most Dark Eldar vehicles with the Twin-Linked Scatter laser and the 'Twin-linked' Serpent Shield. 'Haywire Wyches!' i here you shout, but how on Earth do the Wyches get there in a 2 Hull Point AV 10 Venom. Without resorted to Eldar allies, how can i handle this horrible, horrible machine that can personally take out every tank in my army even when snap firing?

Waveserpents have always been the bane of the DE army, back even when Eldar had their 4th edition codex.

I've played quite a few games vs DE with my Eldar, and there really doesn't seem to be an answer. It just seems to be one of those rock paper scissors match, much like how DE are to Tyranids.

Beast star with fortune or invisibility will tear up serpent spam. Reserve the venoms so they don't get torn up by serpent shields, then use them later to hunt jetbikes.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Beast star with fortune or invisibility will tear up serpent spam. Reserve the venoms so they don't get torn up by serpent shields, then use them later to hunt jetbikes.

Well, it this case, I'd tie up the Beaststar with a Council long enough so that the Serpents can do enough damage.

Well that's...disappointing. A Beaststar could work, but Fortune or Invisibility aren't the most reliable of things, especially as I am playing Dark Eldar main so he will have more Warp Charges then me.

Sigh, it's not the fact that Wave Serpents are so good that annoys me, it's the fact they are so dam indestructible! They could have half the fire power and still obliterate my army due to it's Jink save and good AV. I might just refuse to play anyone that brings more then 2 of them, it's a shame a single unit of over powered can ruin a game for me.

I haven't seen anyone use them in a long long time. but scourges have the maneuverability and weapon loadout to eat wave serpents alive. they are pretty pricey, if i remember right. but ranged haywire on jump troops still makes me cringe.

For melee, think talos. yeah. its not that good against most other models either. but its way more survivable to get to a wave serpent than wyches. and its enough against rear armor. while its not usually fast enough, it can allow you to control where the wave serpents can move. use it to keep em behind buildings to avoid your assault.

Currently eldar steam roll DE. It sucks but we just need to hang tight until fall when we allegedly get our update. I'm praying they add some tools when they do, though odds are it will always be a rough fight. What we need is MUCH more open availability for haywire blasters, its a very fluffy weapon that suits us, it just needs assault 2 and as I said, better access and I think we shimmy up the poll quite a bit.

What do i do when the Dire Avengers inside the Wave Serpent stop running scared and realize they have range 18'' rending storm bolters? Or a Wraithknight instant kills it? Or in fact any other of that ''Roll a 6 to win'' Over Powered Cr*p Eldar get? Scourges would be...inefficient to say the least. 2 Haywire shots in a unit of 5, so you are wasting 9 Carbine shots for 2 maybe-glances which he gets a 3+ cover save against, knowing full well they will instantly die next turn.

I am kind of contemplating taking a Tantalus Grotstar with Urien to make them Str 6 (7 on the charge). AV 12 4HP is as resilient as we are going to get without bringing Vect into this and the Grots can handle most things in the Eldar army...until he throws a Wraithknight my way and Instant Kills everything. Sigh, Is it just me or is the power difference between ever middle tier armies such as Dark Eldar and Hier Tier armies such as Eldar and Tau is just getting larger, I'd hate to know what it feels like to be a Blood Angles player!

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
What do i do when the Dire Avengers inside the Wave Serpent stop running scared and realize they have range 18'' rending storm bolters? Or a Wraithknight instant kills it? Or in fact any other of that ''Roll a 6 to win'' Over Powered Cr*p Eldar get? Scourges would be...inefficient to say the least. 2 Haywire shots in a unit of 5, so you are wasting 9 Carbine shots for 2 maybe-glances which he gets a 3+ cover save against, knowing full well they will instantly die next turn.

I am kind of contemplating taking a Tantalus Grotstar with Urien to make them Str 6 (7 on the charge). AV 12 4HP is as resilient as we are going to get without bringing Vect into this and the Grots can handle most things in the Eldar army...until he throws a Wraithknight my way and Instant Kills everything. Sigh, Is it just me or is the power difference between ever middle tier armies such as Dark Eldar and Hier Tier armies such as Eldar and Tau is just getting larger, I'd hate to know what it feels like to be a Blood Angles player!

Eldar weren't pushing models out the factories.

GW buffs Eldar to become disgusting monstrosities. Tau previously.

If you were at Adepticon, you would have seen Trip Tide and Knights bloody everywhere. I think there were maybe, 5-6 people not running some disgusting form of Trip Tide + Allied Knights? The game has devolved quite the bit, but thankfully Orks and DE are next to get re-done.

WS have always been an issue to kill, trouble is, they have the fire power of battle tanks which is stupid.

The only things that I can really think of that would be helpful have already been mentioned, Scourges, Grots, Hwyches. Maybe you can ram them with your raiders if you're desperate. Or if you're taking the Tantalus then you should also consider taking eldar fire dragon allies embarked on it. get a nice little range bonus thanks to open topped. But taking pansy allies is always a meh in my book. Maybe you could even take heat lances on your reavers...yeah, i'd just wait till the update.

you're battle brothers. Take waveserpents.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Or a Wraithknight instant kills it?

Wraithknights should not be an issue for you. You've got poison weapons everywhere. When i've started my Wraithknight on the table against DE, it has ALWAYS given up first blood.

DE will struggle against AV12 with good saves, that's simply the nature of the codex. Same reason Daemons struggle against GK's, and other armies counter other armies. Take your lickings against Eldar, and just hope you play against Orks next.

Close combat is the best way which leaves us with beastpack or grotesques, or glance them to death with haywire grenades.

I don't even bother shooting them anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Beast star with fortune or invisibility will tear up serpent spam. Reserve the venoms so they don't get torn up by serpent shields, then use them later to hunt jetbikes.

Well, it this case, I'd tie up the Beaststar with a Council long enough so that the Serpents can do enough damage.

Reavers, shattershard and crucible, bye bye council.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Red Corsair wrote:
Currently eldar steam roll DE. It sucks but we just need to hang tight until fall when we allegedly get our update. I'm praying they add some tools when they do, though odds are it will always be a rough fight. What we need is MUCH more open availability for haywire blasters, its a very fluffy weapon that suits us, it just needs assault 2 and as I said, better access and I think we shimmy up the poll quite a bit.

Eldar don't steamroll DE. Use LOS to advantage.

Eldar don't steamroll DE. Use LOS to advantage.

I don't see how this is even slightly possible, if someone brings 5 serpents then it is pretty difficult to hide your whole army from them. The fact that they spam str 7 cover ignoring shots and take 18 lances on average to take down mean that they really are the bane of DE.

I don't see many viable ways of taking out a wave serpent vs a good player. Possibly try to bait his shield and then hit it with all the lances you have.
If you have enough lances on the table, and the opponent plays very cautiously, then at least you can limit their firepower by forcing them all (most) to jink.

I can't see the beaststar or wyches getting close enough to the 12 move skimmer, plus if you do get close then it can boost 30 inches away in its next turn.

As for the wraithkngiht, I hate them. T8 and 6 wounds with a 12 inch move makes them incredibly powerful. I dislike them much more than the riptide. At least the riptide is bad in cc and is effected by morale and small arms. The wraith knight ignores almost everything on the table. With this said, DE players shouldn't have a problem. For you guys a wraith knight is just as tough as 6 tactical marines.

It's easy to hide the army from them, deep strike your vehicles, use night shields, etc.

If you turbo boost up to the wave serpents wyches will mince them the turn after.

DE vehicles are simply a delivery method, they are not tough enough to hold against most things, use them as they are meant to be used.

Its easy to hide your army when the enemy has 5 or so wave serpents, each with a 12 move and a potential 60 inch range? What kind of boards are you playing on?
City block with no LoS between each street or something. Your deployment zone must be seriously stacked with terrain if you are able to hide your whole army from wave serpent spam.

DE vehicles can be used as a delivery system, sure. However:

If you turbo boost up to the wave serpents wyches will mince them the turn after.

They wont make mince meat of them if they are dead. If you are jinking for a 4+ save, and the serpent fires it's shield at you (using a conservative 4 shots average) then a venom will lose slightly more than 3 hull points. (A raider without FF would lose 3.8)
The type and amount of firepower that a waveserpent puts out is just perfect against venoms and raiders. Whilst they won't explode anymore, they will still die to hullpoint loss.
Jump the dire avengers out and the wyches are toast.

I really can't see this being a very viable strategy, particularly as you are relying on the wyches surviving a turn, and also because of random charge distances, especially if the serpent gets behind cover.

Thats why you need to make them Jink with the Ravagers turn 1 so they are hitting on 6's.

Plus the way I play it there is a Beastpack on the way up as well.

You have to give them a problem, shoot the Haywire or shoot the Beastpack which will glance them all the death the next turn when tney get in.

The amount of short sighted, narrow / close minded people on this forum bemuse me, all I ever hear is moaning from people and no answers, I give them one and someone attempts to shoot it down (as usual).

Lets put it this way, it works for me, I have no problems against Eldar so either I'm the luckiest person on the planet or I know what I am doing.

The only list in the game I can ever see as being a problem for me is Necron Flyer spam, other than that I have no issues with anything.

Shingen wrote:
Thats why you need to make them Jink with the Ravagers turn 1 so they are hitting on 6's.

Plus the way I play it there is a Beastpack on the way up as well.

You have to give them a problem, shoot the Haywire or shoot the Beastpack which will glance them all the death the next turn when tney get in.

The amount of short sighted, narrow / close minded people on this forum bemuse me, all I ever hear is moaning from people and no answers, I give them one and someone attempts to shoot it down (as usual).

Lets put it this way, it works for me, I have no problems against Eldar so either I'm the luckiest person on the planet or I know what I am doing.

The only list in the game I can ever see as being a problem for me is Necron Flyer spam, other than that I have no issues with anything.

Someone disagrees with you so they must be closed minded and short sighted. Nice attitude, oh great all knowing one.

I particularly like the part in your strategy, where you can hide you entire army on turn one, but the opponent can't deploy his out of LoS or in fact behind any cover at all.

Maybe you got lucky, maybe you play bad eldar players, maybe you are the best player ever all knowing one, however, the fact remains that your strategy still revolves around charging melee units up the board, against the fastest and hardest hitting transport in the game. Over a series of games I can see this failing more times than it succeeds. It might be the best DE has to offer, but really you are still going to be fighting an uphill battle.

Bill, I haven't had a problem with Eldar either.

I agree that the Wave Serpents are a high-priority target, but DE have a large number of units that can crush them.

Don't believe all the hype you hear about the Wave Serpent. That's how they trick you.

Wave Serpents are not that good for the points cost. CC or rear armor and they are screwed, I really don't get the hype either.

Its not about me being right or wrong or being and the rest of what you said, its about the attitude of some people who are so defeatist, it doesn't help newer players learn anything.

Oh, make them jink with Ravagers? Oh, hitting on 3+ S8 against AV 12, any smart Eldar player will have his Serpents hidden behind some terrain which with holo-fields give them 4+ or 3+ cover. Now lets see what you can do with your Ravagers shooting. And EVEN if Serpent jink, twin linked scatter + twin linked shield has stilla good chance of killing your Venoms.

I agree that beasts especially with fortune/invis might reach Serpents but seriously. 1-2 Serpents is not problem, but play against 4-5+ and your Wyches wont reach anything. Serpent Spam kill DE, simple as that, unless you have lucky dice rolls, in which case you can win with anything.

Losing the venoms isn't really a concern like I said they are a delivery method.

Zanais wrote:
Oh, make them jink with Ravagers? Oh, hitting on 3+ S8 against AV 12, any smart Eldar player will have his Serpents hidden behind some terrain which with holo-fields give them 4+ or 3+ cover. Now lets see what you can do with your Ravagers shooting. And EVEN if Serpent jink, twin linked scatter + twin linked shield has stilla good chance of killing your Venoms.

Oh, you can use the fast skimmer nature of the Ravager to get an angle on the serpents. Especially if he's got 4+ of them. There's only so much terrain available. Aside from that, you've got things like blasterborn, haywire wyches, beastpacks that WILL be able to get to the serpents by turn 3 AT THE VERY latest.

Most well build DE lists are going to have 2-3 Ravagers, 6+ venoms and a beastpack. 2-3 Ravagers should kill a serpent, or at least make 2 serpents jink.

A jinking serpent with SL, Cannon and holofield snap-shotting will average .35 glances, and .83 penetrations against a venom. Admittedly, that's pretty darn good. But even if you lose a Venom, you've got guys inside he'll have to take care of at some point. Any Wych squad that reaches a Serpent is going to destroy it.

Beastpack should be able to charge turn 2 with its 12" plus run turn 1.

Turbo boost the venoms turn 1 to get trueborn and wyches in range turn 2. The ravagers force the serpents to jink so you can hope they don't pop you turn 2.

Max pressure, get in their faces and give them loads to worry about.

Run 3 Beastpacks .



Seriously though love this mentality that everyone who has a different experience or trouble against an OP army is just some close minded scrub who needs to face the fact that they are playing wrong.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jimsolo wrote:

I agree that the Wave Serpents are a high-priority target, but DE have a large number of units that can crush them.

Oh in that case then you should be able to name a couple

I don't think we have much in the form of cost effective counters tbh. Serpents are a natural counter to our glass cannon, I think even if they weren't OP we'd have trouble with them

"Accommoda, et mortuus est".

Seriously though, you seem to be focussing of that single point of the whole thing without taking into account the rest of the comments and dismissing them without question.

Sure we might disagree but after playing 2 games a week with DE against competitive lists I would hope I have learnt enough to formalize tactics that work the majority of the time.

Focus on the positive aspects!

I play both DE and Eldar. Sure, 2-3 Ravager will force to jink/stun/destroy 1 Serpent. What about rest? Playing against DE you just place your Serpents as far away as possible and use your 60" shields. And dont forget Eldar will have other things in his list not only Serpents. Seriously, even Avengers can kill Venoms and Raiders, amount of S6-7 Eldars can shoot against AV10 army is too much most of the time for DE to handle. Every destroyed Venom is also killing few Wyches onboard, force pinning, maybe LD test.
I dont know against which Eldars players you played, but dont say Eldars are easy preu for DE cause it just not true. If I go to tournament I take Eldar vs DE anytime.

Shingen wrote:
Losing the venoms isn't really a concern like I said they are a delivery method.

delivery method for what?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Belly wrote:

Oh, you can use the fast skimmer nature of the Ravager to get an angle on the serpents. Especially if he's got 4+ of them. There's only so much terrain available. Aside from that, you've got things like blasterborn, haywire wyches, beastpacks that WILL be able to get to the serpents by turn 3 AT THE VERY latest.

A serpant is going to down a venom/ravager a turn. If you have 9-11 vehicles by turn 3 against serpants you wont have any left.


2-3 Ravagers should kill a serpent, or at least make 2 serpents jink.

I played a great game against Eldar in a Tournament a few days ago, not a single Wave Serpent to be seen and we both had an enjoyable match. Had another game against a different Eldar player in the Semi-Finals, got all but tabled turn 3 and have up. Do you want to know why i lost? He got first turn.

Saying use LOS is utterly useless, any player worth his salt will assault you from different angles, and planning on the other player being inept is a bad plan. Wraithknights are not half as helpless as people make out, it takes 18 wounds (36 hits, 40 odd shots) to kill that thing, which isn't easy to do in a single turn if he deploys smartly, especially when they can get back wounds from that Stone and Renewer. I think i will just have to accept Warhammer isn't balanced and if you play Wave Serpents (3+), you won't play me.