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Depends on the list itself. If the list is five five-man Dire Avengers squads, that's spamming and annoying. If each Serpent is filled to capacity with bodies or really used as a heavy hitting transport, the number doesn't matter. I'm building my list where every single model has a transport to go in. Five man Rangers go in Falcons and Wraithguard, Guardians, whatever go in Serpents. Two Serpents and two Falcons and each tank is used as an augment to the army, not as the army itself. I'd say that's the key difference. If the list is built around the transports or the bodies inside.

For me it comes down to a pretty simple guideline that I have applied to my necron night scythes but is relatively appropriate for this as well. If you are looking at the list as how many of the transport can I squeeze in, your spamming, if its just a convenient option for mobility sake your good.

for example if im playing a 1k game and I bring all 4 of my night scythes probably spamming, If im doing an 1850 game with 3 its probably not.

I feel that if your taking dire a's just to take serpents it's clearly abuse, so generally speaking anything over 2 in a 1000pts list is you clearly out to club seals/kick puppies

I believe 7 is too many in 1 CAD. You can only have 6 as per the rulebook. So that's where I draw the line, unless we're playing unbound. Then you can bring as many as points allow as long as you have the required bodies in each one. Am I the only guy left that will play against any army as long as it follows the rules? It would've been nice to get to choose who we were fighting and what kind of weapons they could bring when I was deployed, but that's not war. The enemy brings what they bring, your job is to find a way to defeat it. Bring 3 wraithknights and 6 wave serpents for all I care. If I lose, I will learn something from it.

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:
For me it comes down to a pretty simple guideline that I have applied to my necron night scythes but is relatively appropriate for this as well. If you are looking at the list as how many of the transport can I squeeze in, your spamming, if its just a convenient option for mobility sake your good.

for example if im playing a 1k game and I bring all 4 of my night scythes probably spamming, If im doing an 1850 game with 3 its probably not.

Pretty much this ^

While its always good tactics to leverage the strengths of your army....its also easy to rationalize this into spamming unis that are generally recognized as being too good for their points.

Well, there comes a time where you just can't fit any more in your deployment zone and you have to start putting them in reserve. I'd say that's about the limit.

Well, I usually field 5 Serpents with 2x Fire Dragons, 2x Dire Avengers, and 1x Guardians.
The rest is HQ and HS.

Toofast wrote:
I believe 7 is too many in 1 CAD. You can only have 6 as per the rulebook. So that's where I draw the line, unless we're playing unbound. Then you can bring as many as points allow as long as you have the required bodies in each one. Am I the only guy left that will play against any army as long as it follows the rules? It would've been nice to get to choose who we were fighting and what kind of weapons they could bring when I was deployed, but that's not war. The enemy brings what they bring, your job is to find a way to defeat it. Bring 3 wraithknights and 6 wave serpents for all I care. If I lose, I will learn something from it.

I get your point, but where do you get 6 being the max? Depending on points, I can take much more than that on a single CAD. I think you forgot that Wave Serpent transports also exist in the Elite and Heavy Support slots.

For example.

6 x 5 Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents (Troops)
3 x 5 Fire Dragons in Wave Serpents (Elite)
3 x 3 Dark Reapers in Wave Serpents (Heavy Support)

I've pushed 8 into an army before at 2000 points, but I felt it was a bit of diminishing returns at that point (plus, I own 8 and don't want any more).

Where is the infinity symbol on my keyboard....

Toofast wrote:
I believe 7 is too many in 1 CAD. You can only have 6 as per the rulebook. So that's where I draw the line, unless we're playing unbound. Then you can bring as many as points allow as long as you have the required bodies in each one. Am I the only guy left that will play against any army as long as it follows the rules? It would've been nice to get to choose who we were fighting and what kind of weapons they could bring when I was deployed, but that's not war. The enemy brings what they bring, your job is to find a way to defeat it. Bring 3 wraithknights and 6 wave serpents for all I care. If I lose, I will learn something from it.

You're not the only one.

A certain subset of 40k players seem to be operating under the impression that for them to approve the ethics of their opponent's army list is just a natural part of the game.

There's also the notion that the only possible purpose for fielding a strong list is to table 12-year-olds who don't really know what's going on. I'm pretty sure my regular group of players would take issue with being called helpless seals, impotently lying on the floor, waiting to be punched to death with the club that is my Eldar army.

I don't have a problem with wave serpent spam. I've taken out 4 in a game without too much trouble. They can only get so many jink saves when you're blasting them with lascannons, melta and missiles every turn. I didn't realize you could take them in other slots. Personally, I would also play against 8. I still draw the line at whatever your codex says you can take. I'm not the list police, that is the job of the codex. As the above poster said, I'm not sure when everyone decided they had to approve of their opponents perfectly legal list before a game.

If your playing a point based game I am up for you taking as many Serpents as your points and CAD allow. Let me know ahead of time if your list is friendly or competitive and I'll match.

So my answer there is no such thing as spam just friendly or competitive play. I just ask for a heads up which I am going into to see what list I want to bring.

There is no too many, there's only as many you want to field.

I mean, yeah technically there is no limit, but I look down upon min/maxing. Bring 5 troops, just to be able to give the a transport? That's lazy.

I mean yeah, I play Night Scythes. I never field more than 2, because I bring two full squads of Immortals with some characters every so often. My other troops take Ghost Arks. If someone were bringing more than like, 4, I wouldn't even unpack my stuff.

 krodarklorr wrote:
I mean, yeah technically there is no limit, but I look down upon min/maxing. Bring 5 troops, just to be able to give the a transport? That's lazy.

I mean yeah, I play Night Scythes. I never field more than 2, because I bring two full squads of Immortals with some characters every so often. My other troops take Ghost Arks. If someone were bringing more than like, 4, I wouldn't even unpack my stuff.

So, If I ran a list with 30 Dire Avengers in 6 Wave Serpents, you wouldn't even play me?

 Random Dude wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
I mean, yeah technically there is no limit, but I look down upon min/maxing. Bring 5 troops, just to be able to give the a transport? That's lazy.

I mean yeah, I play Night Scythes. I never field more than 2, because I bring two full squads of Immortals with some characters every so often. My other troops take Ghost Arks. If someone were bringing more than like, 4, I wouldn't even unpack my stuff.

So, If I ran a list with 30 Dire Avengers in 6 Wave Serpents, you wouldn't even play me?

Pretty much. It would be no fun, whatsoever. I've dealt with 3 at 2000 points before, but not before they wiped out most of my av13 vehicles.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
I mean, yeah technically there is no limit, but I look down upon min/maxing. Bring 5 troops, just to be able to give the a transport? That's lazy.

I mean yeah, I play Night Scythes. I never field more than 2, because I bring two full squads of Immortals with some characters every so often. My other troops take Ghost Arks. If someone were bringing more than like, 4, I wouldn't even unpack my stuff.

So, If I ran a list with 30 Dire Avengers in 6 Wave Serpents, you wouldn't even play me?

Pretty much. It would be no fun, whatsoever. I've dealt with 3 at 2000 points before, but not before they wiped out most of my av13 vehicles.

The strongest shooting serpents can have is strength 8. How did that take out your AV13?

 Random Dude wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
I mean, yeah technically there is no limit, but I look down upon min/maxing. Bring 5 troops, just to be able to give the a transport? That's lazy.

I mean yeah, I play Night Scythes. I never field more than 2, because I bring two full squads of Immortals with some characters every so often. My other troops take Ghost Arks. If someone were bringing more than like, 4, I wouldn't even unpack my stuff.

So, If I ran a list with 30 Dire Avengers in 6 Wave Serpents, you wouldn't even play me?

Pretty much. It would be no fun, whatsoever. I've dealt with 3 at 2000 points before, but not before they wiped out most of my av13 vehicles.

The strongest shooting serpents can have is strength 8. How did that take out your AV13?

Well, I didn't even know they could have S8, which doesn't help the argument, at all. But S7, glancing on 6s with NO saves whatsoever. That will do the trick. Took out a ghost ark, 2 A-barges, and most of another ghost ark. They are by far the best Dedicated Transport in the game.

The Serpent Shield gives S7 shots, missiles are S8 but rarely used. With D6+1 S7 shots all on one AV13, that's going to kill it just by sheer weight of multiple Serpents firing in volleys.

Don't listen to the flame on the internet. Get a feel from the people you play with regularly and ask them.

For example, I play in a semi-competitve environment and regularly field 4x 5 man Dire Avenger Squads in Serpents at 1850. Wanna take a guess at how many people have ever complained, or refused to play me? The answer is 0, yep thats right, 0.

Again get a feel for your local players. Ignore the internet trolls.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
The Serpent Shield gives S7 shots, missiles are S8 but rarely used. With D6+1 S7 shots all on one AV13, that's going to kill it just by sheer weight of multiple Serpents firing in volleys.

Let's not forget that those shots will be twin linked and BS4 (because Guardians got a buff to BS and WS for the first time in over 20 years, because the whole book clearly needed a buff) and ignoring cover.

Really AV 13+ is the only thing that stands a chance, because anything else is going to get wound spammed/glanced into oblivion. Very few units can withstand a round of unmitigated shooting from a Serpent and still be functional afterwards.

I have the potential for two (one has Falcon/Serpent swappable turrets), because I have to have something to enable my Guardians to keep up with all the jetbikes.

 extremefreak17 wrote:
Don't listen to the flame on the internet. Get a feel from the people you play with regularly and ask them.

For example, I play in a semi-competitve environment and regularly field 4x 5 man Dire Avenger Squads in Serpents at 1850. Wanna take a guess at how many people have ever complained, or refused to play me? The answer is 0, yep thats right, 0.

Again get a feel for your local players. Ignore the internet trolls.

Want to take a guess at how many secretly think you're a bit of a WAAC player with a boring, easy mode list?

At least by disclosing you play this list it does inform us of your very subjective opinion, and people expressing one different from that are NOT trolls.

In my meta, one is to many. Literally. Ive had complains from people when i take one wave serpent, along with a totally unconventional army.

I haven't bought any Eldar yet (read my signature), but I have many friends at my local GW store all of whom are comfortable with "tournament style" lists.

 Random Dude wrote:
I haven't bought any Eldar yet (read my signature), but I have many friends at my local GW store all of whom are comfortable with "tournament style" lists.

I wish....That is my hobby dream right now...

 ninjafiredragon wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:
I haven't bought any Eldar yet (read my signature), but I have many friends at my local GW store all of whom are comfortable with "tournament style" lists.

I wish....That is my hobby dream right now...

Well, they are my friends. If I brought that kind of list against a stranger, I don't know what kind of reaction I would get.

Play your army any way that you want, people who bitch about spamming and refusal to play...well, that's their thing. Silly, but their thing.

I'd be excited to see you come up with your army, I'm always up for a challenge and I always love killing me some Eldar.

 Frankenberry wrote:
Play your army any way that you want, people who bitch about spamming and refusal to play...well, that's their thing. Silly, but their thing.

I'd be excited to see you come up with your army, I'm always up for a challenge and I always love killing me some Eldar.

Yeah, but you'd be bored witless by the second shooting phase.