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.

morgoth wrote:
I think mostly every army has a good way to deal with Wave Serpents efficiently.

The issue is that the people who play those armies refuse to adapt to Wave Serpents.

Not every army has a good way of dealing with everything out there, first off. As a Necron, my main way of dealing with vehicles is Gauss, which glances on 6s, but can't get through a 3+ cover say reliably. None of my stuff can, as I DON'T have anything with ignores cover, except a Sweeping attack from an Overlord, but I have to be decently close. By the time I'm close, your "not overpowered" transport has glanced most of my vehicles to death because I can't do anything about it.

So no, I don't have an "efficient" way to deal with it.

It's just not the wave serpent spam, its they have so many good units that are spammable. AND they have so much synergy going on with their codex.

One example is I get hit by the Wraithlord/Wraith Knight spam. That's a lot of MC that I have to burn through everyone of their wounds wheras my vehicles always have the option of exploding.

Another thing going for the Eldar is the ability to run and shoot with so many units. This gives them so many strategic options. They are good at siezing objectives and can get in to hand to hand fast if they want - or stay out of hand to hand if they want.

 krodarklorr wrote:

morgoth wrote:
I think mostly every army has a good way to deal with Wave Serpents efficiently.

The issue is that the people who play those armies refuse to adapt to Wave Serpents.

Not every army has a good way of dealing with everything out there, first off. As a Necron, my main way of dealing with vehicles is Gauss, which glances on 6s, but can't get through a 3+ cover say reliably. None of my stuff can, as I DON'T have anything with ignores cover, except a Sweeping attack from an Overlord, but I have to be decently close. By the time I'm close, your "not overpowered" transport has glanced most of my vehicles to death because I can't do anything about it.

So no, I don't have an "efficient" way to deal with it.

Sure. Annihilation Barges, Night Scythes, Doom Scythes, even flayed ones are good against WS because they can totally mess up his retreat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

We wrote:
It's just not the wave serpent spam, its they have so many good units that are spammable. AND they have so much synergy going on with their codex.

One example is I get hit by the Wraithlord/Wraith Knight spam. That's a lot of MC that I have to burn through everyone of their wounds wheras my vehicles always have the option of exploding.

Another thing going for the Eldar is the ability to run and shoot with so many units. This gives them so many strategic options. They are good at siezing objectives and can get in to hand to hand fast if they want - or stay out of hand to hand if they want.

If somebody plays Wraithlords, you should be able to win every game. Otherwise, your army list is bad.

WK spam is 3 WK in a CAD, anything more than that and you're playing unbound, it's not that hard to take down those MCs if you bring the right tools.

Eldar are not good at taking objectives because they lack anything that can just stand on the objective, they make up for that by going for objectives that are out of charge threat range.
While their mobility unquestionably is their hallmark advantage, even slow units can be on most objectives T2.

morgoth wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

morgoth wrote:
I think mostly every army has a good way to deal with Wave Serpents efficiently.

The issue is that the people who play those armies refuse to adapt to Wave Serpents.

Not every army has a good way of dealing with everything out there, first off. As a Necron, my main way of dealing with vehicles is Gauss, which glances on 6s, but can't get through a 3+ cover say reliably. None of my stuff can, as I DON'T have anything with ignores cover, except a Sweeping attack from an Overlord, but I have to be decently close. By the time I'm close, your "not overpowered" transport has glanced most of my vehicles to death because I can't do anything about it.

So no, I don't have an "efficient" way to deal with it.

Sure. Annihilation Barges, Night Scythes, Doom Scythes, even flayed ones are good against WS because they can totally mess up his retreat.

If you think those are counters to wave serpents (especially flayed ones, which is one of the worst units in the game) you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Of course a list that is optomized to kill WS will kill WS - thats what it is optomized to do. However it then leave it lacking against most other competitive lists. Whereas the WS list will be good against everything except the one list that is optomized to beat it.
Also note that you said deamons and necrons... not anything away from top tier. If any codex outside top tier really struggles to deal with it - it is overpowered (not writing it short hand as I think we may be forgetting what it stands for).

It's optimized, not optomized optamized or whatever FOTM spelling you came up with.

No top tier codex struggles with Wave Serpents.

Lacking against some lists and good against others is the nature of every single army list out there.

The fact that people choose to NOT make Wave Serpents a focus of their army list - thereby opening other weaknesses - is the main reason Wave Serpents are doing so well.
WS Spam is/was extremely easy to beat with even v6 Dark Eldar without allies, you just have to be planning for it. (if you say no, imagine 3x full Khymera beastpack, deep striking blasterborn and the rest as one huge wave of doom).

Having a unit that shifts the meta does not make that unit OP, and even less the whole codex.

morgoth wrote:
WK spam is 3 WK in a CAD, anything more than that and you're playing unbound, it's not that hard to take down those MCs if you bring the right tools.

Or, you are playing against multiple CADs. Or CAD plus 1+ Eldar Ghost Warriors. Or 4+ Eldar Ghost Warriors.

And that is not even including the Planetstrike Detachments.

 Happyjew wrote:

morgoth wrote:
WK spam is 3 WK in a CAD, anything more than that and you're playing unbound, it's not that hard to take down those MCs if you bring the right tools.

Or, you are playing against multiple CADs. Or CAD plus 1+ Eldar Ghost Warriors. Or 4+ Eldar Ghost Warriors.

And that is not even including the Planetstrike Detachments.

That or unbound is the same to me.
Either way, gives both sides the exact same amount of room for random cheese.

Sadly, it would only take minor tweaking to make Elder go from OP to just a good army.

1. Make the serpent shield one use only (use it as a gun or a shield, its gone). Raise WS point cost by 15-20.
2. Make bladestorm only auto wound on a six, not AP2, or make it only available to dire avengers.
3. Remove spirit seers ability to make WG troops from the core codex.
4. Make jet bikes a Fast Attack choice.
5. Make the WK a lord of war.
6. Increase points cost of just about all of the aspect warriors.

We've had lots of threads on how to balance Eldar. The consensus answer is usually give the Serpent Shield a 12" range, possibly one-shot as well, and the Serpent is balanced. And the codex as a whole becomes clearly-top-tier instead of simply OP.

Consensus also seemed to be v7 actually nerfed Eldar, but even nerfed, its still #1.
-Mobility on Maelstrom helps, but their mobility did more to dominate last-turn-objective-grabing.
-Only Wraithknight and Serpent are notably survivable. knight isn't a troop, and suffers low model count. Serpent is only super survivable out of charge range. This lack of survivability makes Eternal War better than Maelstrom.
-Jink makes our skimmers more survivable, but costs dakka to do so. I'd call it a minor nerf, as our skimmers are usually spammed, but its certainly debatable.
-While Invis is broken, Psykers got massively nerfed this edition. Start looking at how many powers actually get cast each turn, and its much worse. Two Farseers shouldn't be able to get both Fortune and Invis off every turn, and certainly can't get off as many powers as last edition.

Eldar romped the second half of 6th, and were nerfed, IMO, in 7th (they were obviously written for 7th). But they're still #1. Just by a narrower margin.

Hope you don't mind me dropping a subset of changes I'd love:
-Serpent Shield - 6" heavy *1* torrent, 3+ to downgrade a pen. Still a strong oh-gak shot, but no longer a gunboat. We have other skimmers (albeit not terribly competitive) for that. As for pen reduction, with 7th, its not as critical.
-Wraithknight -> Lord of War. We all know it should be (along with Riptides, Dreadknights, and Imperial Knights).
-Jetbikes -> 4+ Sv. Must have 5+ models, or count as FA.

I have a lot more ideas I'd love to see, but its really the Serpent that needs help.

 MWHistorian wrote:

morgoth wrote:
I think mostly every army has a good way to deal with Wave Serpents efficiently.

The issue is that the people who play those armies refuse to adapt to Wave Serpents.

They prefer to keep their (very good) lists that kill anything else, yet could not handle Wave Serpents.

In my opinion, that does not make the Wave Serpents OverPowered, just disruptive annoying combo-breaking little bastards.

So powerful the entire 40k meta has to shift around it = Not over powered.
Seems legit.

I like how Morgoth's the only guy sticking up for Wave Serpents, even when the other Eldar players are admitting they're blatantly overpowered. Wave Serpents are too hard to kill and have way too much killing power.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Of course a list that is optomized to kill WS will kill WS - thats what it is optomized to do. However it then leave it lacking against most other competitive lists. Whereas the WS list will be good against everything except the one list that is optomized to beat it.
Also note that you said deamons and necrons... not anything away from top tier. If any codex outside top tier really struggles to deal with it - it is overpowered (not writing it short hand as I think we may be forgetting what it stands for).

This, a thousand times this. Morgoth, you seem to think that because some things can kill Wave Serpents, they're totally fair. However, if you waste all your points trying to kill Wave Serpents, you'll suck versus say an Ork or Nid list, or against flyers, etc. Sure, if you know you're playing a Wave Serpent list today, then you can tailor your list accordingly, but in a tournament you might not even make it to the OP Eldar player if you completely tailor your list to kill them, because you'll get destroyed by TAC lists.

This probably doesn't have much merit with you guys, but this is coming straight from a Necron player (Same goes for Tyranids as well).

I actually browsed through the Eldar codex and checked out their weapon section. Pages of just "Ap 2 3 3 2 2 2 3 2 3 2 4 4 3 2 3 4 3 2"

And anything with AP5 had Bladestorm. Like, wut? As a Necron player, having anything AP 3 or lower is a godsend, yet Eldar apparently floss their teeth with the stuff.

Completely off the topic of Wave Serpents, but I felt like getting it off my chest.

Just rewinding a minute... how can a flayed ones unit block its retreat? It is a fast skimmer which can move 24" in any direction in a turn and can move over any unit...
Also apologies that I spelt optimized with an O. Seems strange that thats the first thing you focused on - almost as if you wanted to flame. But thanks for the re-education.
There is nothing remotely similar to a wave serpent in the game due to that shield, telling somebody they are not OP because they have to focus their entire list on it in a tac situation seems to be a way of hiding from the truth.

 krodarklorr wrote:
This probably doesn't have much merit with you guys, but this is coming straight from a Necron player (Same goes for Tyranids as well).

I actually browsed through the Eldar codex and checked out their weapon section. Pages of just "Ap 2 3 3 2 2 2 3 2 3 2 4 4 3 2 3 4 3 2"

And anything with AP5 had Bladestorm. Like, wut? As a Necron player, having anything AP 3 or lower is a godsend, yet Eldar apparently floss their teeth with the stuff.

Completely off the topic of Wave Serpents, but I felt like getting it off my chest.

Yeah, for the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy, the necrons sure seem to have not discovered the secrets of plasma.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
This probably doesn't have much merit with you guys, but this is coming straight from a Necron player (Same goes for Tyranids as well).

I actually browsed through the Eldar codex and checked out their weapon section. Pages of just "Ap 2 3 3 2 2 2 3 2 3 2 4 4 3 2 3 4 3 2"

And anything with AP5 had Bladestorm. Like, wut? As a Necron player, having anything AP 3 or lower is a godsend, yet Eldar apparently floss their teeth with the stuff.

Completely off the topic of Wave Serpents, but I felt like getting it off my chest.

Yeah, for the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy, the necrons sure seem to have not discovered the secrets of plasma.

God, I read "the most technological race in the galaxy" and I was hoping to God that you weren't referring to Eldar. Thank you for that, sir. Anyway, you have a good point. I find that odd that they have nothing plasma related, and Gauss, which tears things apart at a molecular level, is at max, AP3. And there's very few things that can take it. I mean, there's the HGC, but there's even fewer of those. >.<

Because people are whiny when they lose. Eldar are NOT broken. Not even Malefic Daemonology and Knights are as powerful as people say. The only problem is that some people decide to bring lists that nothing can ever beat, mostly spamming flyers and FMC.

I don't know what you play against, but a lot of my weaponry is ap 5/6/-. Just look at the broken Wave Serpent. 3 pseudorending ap5 shots, and the rest is ap6/-.

Eldar have a lot of different low-ap weapons, but generally have to choose between low-ap and high-volume. Marines might have fewer low-ap options, for example, but every Tac squad can take a Plasma or Melts gun.

As for bladestorm, remember that a bolter round is more deadly to Dire Avenger than a shuriken round is to a Marine. And DAs cost just as much as a non-AKSKNF marine (13 ppm - price of a CSM). With a much shorter range (18 vs 24+), no access to special/heavy weapons, and can't hurt av11 at range, or av10 in melee.

Guardians are cheaper (9ppm - 2/3rds of a Marine), but die more than twice as fast to boltguns than Marines die to Shurikens. And with a 12" range, they shouldn't get a chance.

The only other Bladestorm weapon is the Shuriken Cannon. 24" a3 s6 ap5. It wounds on a 6 anyways due to its S. It has lower base AP and much shorter range (24 vs 36 is critical) than a Heavy Bolter, for +1 S, +pseudo rending. Its basically a weaker Assault Cannon (1 less shot, 1 less AP, not-real rending for vehicles). So somewhere between a Heavy Bolter and an Assault Cannon. Pseudo-rending doesn't really seem out of place.

I don't think pseudo-rending is really a problem. Sure, it means if you drop a t8 3+ demon backfield, troops aren't worthless. But put a Rhino back there, and all the guardians or DAs in the game can't mach a tac squad. Even without special/heavy weapons

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

This, a thousand times this. Morgoth, you seem to think that because some things can kill Wave Serpents, they're totally fair. However, if you waste all your points trying to kill Wave Serpents, you'll suck versus say an Ork or Nid list, or against flyers, etc. Sure, if you know you're playing a Wave Serpent list today, then you can tailor your list accordingly, but in a tournament you might not even make it to the OP Eldar player if you completely tailor your list to kill them, because you'll get destroyed by TAC lists.

And then you can proceed to whine about Orks or Nids because they're OP because your list cannot handle them, just like WS now.

morgoth wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

This, a thousand times this. Morgoth, you seem to think that because some things can kill Wave Serpents, they're totally fair. However, if you waste all your points trying to kill Wave Serpents, you'll suck versus say an Ork or Nid list, or against flyers, etc. Sure, if you know you're playing a Wave Serpent list today, then you can tailor your list accordingly, but in a tournament you might not even make it to the OP Eldar player if you completely tailor your list to kill them, because you'll get destroyed by TAC lists.

And then you can proceed to whine about Orks or Nids because they're OP because your list cannot handle them, just like WS now.

The idea of a Tac list is dead, and that's a problem. Most tac lists can't deal with WS spam. In fact, most lists will have a lot of problems with WS spam unless you tailor your list against it. Nids, while not useless, aren't near the power level Eldar can reach.

 krodarklorr wrote:
This probably doesn't have much merit with you guys, but this is coming straight from a Necron player (Same goes for Tyranids as well).

I actually browsed through the Eldar codex and checked out their weapon section. Pages of just "Ap 2 3 3 2 2 2 3 2 3 2 4 4 3 2 3 4 3 2"

And anything with AP5 had Bladestorm. Like, wut? As a Necron player, having anything AP 3 or lower is a godsend, yet Eldar apparently floss their teeth with the stuff.

Completely off the topic of Wave Serpents, but I felt like getting it off my chest.

Honestly, it's not as huge a deal as it sounds though, since Eldar are so fragile and only 1/9 shots are going to be AP2.

bibotot wrote:
Because people are whiny when they lose. Eldar are NOT broken. Not even Malefic Daemonology and Knights are as powerful as people say. The only problem is that some people decide to bring lists that nothing can ever beat, mostly spamming flyers and FMC.

Most people would say that Eldar are not OP, it's Wave Serpents largely which are.

morgoth wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

This, a thousand times this. Morgoth, you seem to think that because some things can kill Wave Serpents, they're totally fair. However, if you waste all your points trying to kill Wave Serpents, you'll suck versus say an Ork or Nid list, or against flyers, etc. Sure, if you know you're playing a Wave Serpent list today, then you can tailor your list accordingly, but in a tournament you might not even make it to the OP Eldar player if you completely tailor your list to kill them, because you'll get destroyed by TAC lists.

And then you can proceed to whine about Orks or Nids because they're OP because your list cannot handle them, just like WS now.

Shrödinger's Wave Serpent. It moves 30" fires three weapons at full BS, has its serpent shield up and fires it as well, benefits from night fighting stealth and operates on an infinite surface.

morgoth wrote:
Shrödinger's Wave Serpent. It moves 30" fires three weapons at full BS, has its serpent shield up and fires it as well, benefits from night fighting stealth and operates on an infinite surface.

I think you may be running out of straw for your strawmen, it CAN do all those things, not all at once but it can do the various things it needs to.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

morgoth wrote:
Shrödinger's Wave Serpent. It moves 30" fires three weapons at full BS, has its serpent shield up and fires it as well, benefits from night fighting stealth and operates on an infinite surface.

I think you may be running out of straw for your strawmen, it CAN do all those things, not all at once but it can do the various things it needs to.

Here's a real Wave Serpent: moves 12", stays out of charge range and only fires its scatter laser and serpent shield every turn. Never has any protection fron pens, loses 75% of its DPS when it jinks.

Much less impressive than your theoretical WS isn't it.

Going with Andilus here. Eldar as an army aren't overpowered, it's mostly Wave Serpents that are way over the top and need an extremely harsh nerf.

Morgoth, alright, lets look at this in a different way. Nobody denies the falcon is worth its points right? People don't take them because of the existence of the wave serpent, but they are still appropriatly costed (if not a tad cheap).
Now a wave serpent costs 145pts with shuriken cannon, scatter laser, and holofields.
A falcon costs 160pts for the same equipment options and the same stats.
The differences are the Wave Serpents get a serpent shield, DT slot and 6 extra capacity, whilst the falcon gets a pulse laser.
Lets say the pulse laser costs 30pts (based on two SM missile launchers costing 30 and losing frag for ap2 on the krak). That means without the pulse laser the falcon would cost 130pts. Thus the serp shield, transport cap of 6 and moving from heavy to DT costs the serpent a WHOOPING 15pts.
Now if I could buy a serp shield, transport cap of 6 AND the moving of any of my heavy tanks in ANY dex to the DT slot - I would pay it hands down on every vehicle I ever take!
Are you truely telling us all that 15pts for the option of either d6+1 60" tl st7 ignores cover shots or the ability to convert 5/6 of glances to pens, and also the increased capacity of 6 AND the move from HS to DT is not overpowered? Really???
And thats not even mentioning the fact it should cost more on a fast skimmer.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

morgoth wrote:
Shrödinger's Wave Serpent. It moves 30" fires three weapons at full BS, has its serpent shield up and fires it as well, benefits from night fighting stealth and operates on an infinite surface.

I think you may be running out of straw for your strawmen, it CAN do all those things, not all at once but it can do the various things it needs to.

Obviously I'm not saying that it does all of those at once, it's the versatility which makes them so effective. Hell, it doesn't need to do all of those at once to be insane. Even if it does jink, the other 3-5 Wave Serpents in the army are going to make up for any lost DPS.

Sigvatr wrote:Going with Andilus here. Eldar as an army aren't overpowered, it's mostly Wave Serpents that are way over the top and need an extremely harsh nerf.

Mhmm, the army is fine. I actually quite like the glass cannon status of their infantry, it makes them very fair and fun to fight against. The Wave Serpent turns that into fibre-glass though.

If you're taking your Waveserpents with all of its transport capacity full at the top of turn one, then fine, you can't help that it is your only transport choice and Kelly made it a solid gold, platinum edged über unit.

If you're running them with just 5 DA (or even Guardians) in them? That's a different conversation we're going to have over the course of the game.

Not really sure where the notion of "fragile" Eldar is coming from. Guardians are fragile....and that's about it. 4 of the 7 aspects have a 3+ save. Jetbikes are essentially fast marines. WS are easily the most durable dedicated transport south of a land raider. And then we get to wraith units, with lords and knights having a toughness value typically only found on gargantuan MCs, while the lowly guard just has the same T as a greater daemon.

Fragile is not how I would describe Eldar.

Would two serpent spam lists fighting be like a cleric duel?

And lets not forget conceal (primaris) and protect, as well as all the vehicles having jink!

... And AV11 superheavies, and widespread t3 5+, and most things being ID'd by s6. And nothing with an av11+ rear armor.

Dire Avengers cost Marine points for a t3 4+.

Glass cannon is the DE schtick. Outside Wraith armies, Eldar usually use their mobility, misdirection, and superior tech to be high unkillable, until they commit with explosive fury, at which point they are very vulnerable, if they failed to handle every threat.

The problem is that the Serpent has the explosive fury while being nigh unkillable.