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OK Looking for serious suggestions on how to effectively and. reliably kill wave serpents. I predict these are going to be a lot more common ths edition (and already everywhere) so addressing them is vital.

Im mainly thinking from a chaos viewpoint, but as everyone can ally with everyone anything goes.

The enemy:

Front and side armour 12 (bonus if you can reliably get at the rear of 10.) 3 hullpoints (sounds easy so far)

Assume 3+ cover and only inflicting glancing hits.

Your weapon must also be resistant to mass S7 ignores cover shooting at long range.

For close combat options, you must be able to reliably run the gauntlet of wraithknights and jetseer squads.

Invisibility helps, but cannot be relied upon as its easily shut down.

Those are the rules. You want to be able to kill at least 5 of then throughout the game. What units would you take?

Well, the holofield only works if the tank has moved in the previous turn. Otherwise, it gets the default jinx save.

The only reliable way to destroy a Serpent is cc since with AV10 they are very vulnerable.

I've been considering this little dilemma too. I suspect wave serpents will be all over the place now they are OS (not that they weren't already everywhere...).

Really the only way to kill them reliably is going to be in combat (particularly for chaos). I'll be taking at least one, perhaps two units of screamers, mainly for this purpose. They can munch them in combat and might actually have the speed to catch them. Worth getting in a multi charge if possible, but what eldar player would be silly enough to let that happen

The possible situations the WS is in:

Shield up, no jink-you want to spam S7-8 here, force a jink by mere number of shots that will reduce his shooting. autocannons (regular or ahdes) comes on heldrakes, oblits and forgefields (though the last is a bit vulnerable to the VS, 8 S8 shots are not to be taken lightly even on BS3)

Shield up, jink-target another one. this one won't do anything of note next turn, and wont come down. if you really got nothing better to do, keep with S8/7 spam.

Shield down, no jink-anything that threatens an insta-kill will force him to jink, nuturing his next turn shooting. high S low AP, or melta style hits, your go-to anti tank options are the answer now. lascannons, meltas, multimeltas. (oblits have them all AND are good at tanking WS shooting.) vindis also play nice here, as do tri-las preds. S7-8 spam still works though, just not required.

Shield down, jink-high S cover ignoring are your best bet, though it only comes on noise marines and isn't cheap, at this point you got no real priority weapons, just fire any and all anti-tank guns you have left on it, hoping the jink fails.


Do note, the order of operations you want to work at is:
Shield down and didn't jink
Shield up and didn't jink
Shield down and did jink
Shield up and did jink.

First force them jinks on as many as possible to reduce any return fire, then take advantage on any shields that are down that makes pens slightly better, increasing your odds to kill or at least cripple the WS.
MSU is your friend here, as you shoot at smaller squads then if he jink you can immidiatly switch to the next target with the next gun, rather then shoot a hell lot on one guy at a time.

Not much help to Chaos but legion of the Damned have always worked well for me. Their shots ignore cover and if you can deep strike behind them the shield is useless. I also run Salamanders so the melta shots are master crafted and the multi melta is slow and purposeful so can literally hit the ground firing at full effect. Only downside is there main weakness is multiple high strength shots.

155 points for five guys. Melta combi melta and multi melta. Sorted.

Landraider and lel

with Chaos i cant see you resonably taking out WS that fast. with any number of anything spammed that fast besides multiple groups of invsiibled CC units.

At least a LR it will compleatly make the WS usless, while they can return las cannon fire. focus firing ether on the WS or the WK as those would be pretty much the only things that can hurt it.

As for allying. since 1 shotting is pretty much out of the question, id say IG pask punisher and friends with anti tank with a psyker retinue for forwarning. keep av14 forward and dakka one into dust proper per turn.

Raptors with 2 specials ?
Helldrake vector striking ?

The land raider works also.

I'd talk them into letting you field forge world and bring a reaver or a warhound. Dat str d goodness blast open a wave serpent in a single shot. You can kill two a turn with its templates of doom. And since all they have is a cover save even if he jinks he's dead. Their pieplate guns so they don't roll to hit bypassing the holofields.

A serpent shield can fire all it wants, the most they can do to a titan is strip his shields away he still has all his armor points. The warhound could single handedly table a wave serpent heavy list because once the serpents were dead nothing could hurt him. The eldar simply wouldn't have a weapon strong enough. And his str d guns could also kill an eldar death star. His only hope would be yo bring a wraithknight and pray he gets into cc before you get a shot off

Strength d will no longer reliability kill a serpent vector striking is also no longer viable.

Landraiders and warhounds will work and nullifying them, but im looking for kills. Jink works fine against ordnance as does holofields.

There are certain superheavys that could work. The typhon and hellhammer for example (both banned at the BAO :-s) but they are pretty expensive. (And not chaos) not terribl, options tho.


Do legion of the damned ignore cover with their special weapons? Thats a serious option if so. Raptors with meltas just dont have the ability to get through the jink and do enough hull points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Guard (sorry Astra Militarum) have some options.

Autocannon squads with the ignore cover order /psychic power can do enough damage, but have no way of handling the return fire (possibly putting a terminator character in front?)

The deathstrike missile seems good but I doubt it'd work reliably.

One option is the FW artillery battery. It can be hidden, and has T7 a 3+ and lots of wounds so is very good at surviving.
It can also be given the ignores cover order, and have an attached psyker with the ignores cover power.

Upgrading to medusa s with armourbane shells makes it a small blast but a definate serpent killer.
Very expensive in pounds and points, but possibly a winner. The support network needed to get a reliable output is quite large however.

and yet no-one has mentioned maulerfiends.

12" move that ignores intervening terrain, move through cover to not be slowed by terrain when charging and S10 close combat attacks, with a 5++ invulnerable save that isn't ignored by ignores cover. take 3 of them, and make sure the rest of your army is moving forwards with meltaguns in rhinos.

The waveserpents will either shoot at the maulerfiends and maybe drop them, or they will shoot at the rhinos and drop them instead. whichever they pick, the other will kill them.

and remember, the serpent shield doesn't downgrade pens to glances if it fired the previous turn.

With regards to allies, orks don't struggle against waveserpents. well, my orks don't, anyway. ally in 15 lootas and a battlewagon to keep 'em safe, then run landraiders for the rest of your army.

hell, I'd be inclined to run all landraiders. the waveserpents are useless against them, and if they all fire lascannons at the wraithknight turn 1, it'll disappear.

Damned Legion is new expensive 7ed star for me with ignore meltas, ignore combi grav etc.. You just open main tank like serpent and do other stuff. If they open serpent for me they can die next turn

Maulerfiends and spawn are what im currently thinking. Just a wave of stuff to deal with. Sadly historically eldar deal with it very well (:-()
Lootas in battewagons sounds pretty effective!

The purpose of a Wave Serpent this edition isn't to be the battle tank that it was in 6th, in my experience. It's role as a main troop transport has increased tenfold.

Lists with 1-3 Wave Serpents that use Guardians, 10-man Avenger squads or Wraithunits got a huge buff.

Yep. Which is why killing then outright is so much more important. On the plus side, with good objective plaement, you should be able to lure them closer

Stop trying to gunline them. They are the answer to gunlines.

The Shield doesn't affect rear armor hits, and its only AV10.

Keep in mind the SL and SC ranges. Force it to move up or not contribute much.

Thing is, the way I play my Eldar, you won't target the WS for at least 3 turns. You won't even think it. I play a single one and it's carrying Guardians inside. I also have a Shining Star, a Wraithknight and a Laughintarch rushing forward. You first need to kill at least 2 of those 3, otherwise the fact you killed a WS won't matter at all. It differs from one opponent to the next, but against shooty armies, my tactic is to downplay the WS capability by rarely even firing my shield, rather just using the Scatter/Shuricannon combo to kill off troops during the first few turns, then dumping the guardians on an objective and turboboosting to another one next turn. Against assault armies, I just shoot everything, sacrifice units and counter attacking with my melee elements. There's precious few things that can survive 30 S6 AP3 I5-6 attacks, and those things that can, I shoot. But anyway...

Serpent spam is a thing of the past. 6-9 Wave Serpents and 1-2 WKs, won't do a thing to a Necron AV13 wall which are going to be even more popular than they were before, or a 3-LR marine army, or Centurion or Bikestars or any number of armies. Sure, they'll murder some lists, but that's the nature of rock-paper-scissors that you get when you play mono-builds (only infantry, only vehicles, etc).

At the end of the day, a savvy Eldar player will make you pick your poison and keep you guessing about his end plans. Your objective is to discern his plan before it's too late and react. It's almost impossible to table Eldar. Has been for a long while now (started playing at the end of 4th). But they rely on few key units and your job is to break that synergy, which is harder now than ever, granted.

So looking for ways to kill Wave Serpents may be moot, unless you're playing against a straight-up spam list, in which case, Maulerfiends and Spawn are your best bet. And Be'lakor. A list with one Nurgle Biker Lord and/or Sorc on a bike, some spawn, 3 Maulerfiends and Be'lakor would probably table a Serpent spam list, unless he gets lucky and wrecks a few Maulers on the way.

In 7th, I'd be more concerned about killing what comes out of the WS. This makes CC suboptimal as a means of popping them unless you have squads that can survive scythes to face after breaking one open.

 Vomikron Noxis wrote:
I've been considering this little dilemma too. I suspect wave serpents will be all over the place now they are OS (not that they weren't already everywhere...).

Really the only way to kill them reliably is going to be in combat (particularly for chaos). I'll be taking at least one, perhaps two units of screamers, mainly for this purpose. They can munch them in combat and might actually have the speed to catch them. Worth getting in a multi charge if possible, but what eldar player would be silly enough to let that happen

I'd also think about Flesh Hounds for this kind of job.

COMBAT. Spawns with a beefy character attached. Screamers/Hounds/Grinders/Maulerfiends, etc, etc.

Just rush at the serpents. You should be able to do a fair bit of damage.

Dont bother relying on your shooting.

I hope you're right, balanced lists are so much more palatable than spam.

Spawn rush is ok, but hard countered by combat jetbike units and high T units.

random_man wrote:
Not much help to Chaos but legion of the Damned have always worked well for me. Their shots ignore cover and if you can deep strike behind them the shield is useless. I also run Salamanders so the melta shots are master crafted and the multi melta is slow and purposeful so can literally hit the ground firing at full effect. Only downside is there main weakness is multiple high strength shots.

155 points for five guys. Melta combi melta and multi melta. Sorted.

Remember that LotD don't share any Chapter Tactics. LotD cannot get any MC weapon.

LotD works quite much like Crisis suits as well (better DS, though). Fusion Blasters/Melta stuff behind it and it's sure as gone. With Crisis you can even give them Target Lock and try to eliminate 2 or even 3 (with some luck and markerlights) when arriving

Vulkan's special rule doesn't have any restriction on only applying to models in the army that have the Salamander Chapter Tactic.

The flamer rule from Chapter Tactics won't apply to Legion of the Damned, but the melta rule for Vulkan applies to Legion of the Damned just fine.

got to agree with Vector Strike (hey, that'd work too...) that a crisis bomb landing behind the serpents will do the trick.

Throwing rocks is a good tactic too, as an ork player. A trukk with 4 meganobs is hell to a waveserpent list, particularly when backed up by 6 trukks of boys with PK nobs and boarding planks on the lot. 25" says I'm in your face, and you have 2 options:

A: move a little bit, shoot the trukk and meganobs and pray I fail some saves, if I don't you're dead
B: Move a lot, don't shoot this turn and, what's that? the rest of your army?

it's a simple ultematum. try to kill the MANz, or try to get away from the MANz and the rest of the speedy army I brought. if you kill the MANz, the rest of my army will be close enough to assault. if you fail to kill the MANz, the MANz will assault. if you run away, I will give chase and we will keep playing this little game.

What? Orks winning before the new codex? Inconceivable!