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Hey as you may have been able to tell i play sm and well i was wondering there are any big counters for dealing with serpant spam and their 3+ jink?

Land raiders


Straight up waste there St7 shots on nothing.


But in reality, close combat where they cannot jink, Divination for perfect timing, immobilization??? (IIRC you no longer jink when?)
Weight of fire, and Rear armor shots with meltas.

Pretty much it.

Legion of the Damned Melta squads would be effective.

Sicaran Tank from Forge World. It's gun disallows Jink saves. 6 ST7 shots that are twin linked and rend.

I agree, the Sicaran has the ability to knock one out with one volley. Also, getting a crew of gravturians is not a bad idea either. It sucks to only get results on a 6 but the rerolling on wounds helps. Saturating the target can result in some hits.
Dropping a squad of five legion of tthe damned with multimelta and Malta gun helps too

Drop pods with Meltas. Also remember that if your opponent jinks he has to snap fire the next turn. It makes a huge difference.

Close combat. 2/3 to hit, 1/2 to pen with krak grenades. On average that's 9 marine attacks assuming you have no special weapons at all. Bikers can close the gap faster.

Melta is OK, but unless you're putting it in the serpent's back or he fired his shield... Meh, your close enough to charge anyway.

It's tricky but a chaptermaster, with SS and burning blade on a bike, a Libby with hammer hand on bike, and shield eternal, a command squad on bikes as well. The CM will be swinging the burning blade at STR 9

acidlemon wrote:
Hey as you may have been able to tell i play sm and well i was wondering there are any big counters for dealing with serpant spam and their 3+ jink?

Thank them for their time, pack up your army and wish them a good day.

So if you want to kill the serpent reliably, assaulting it with meltabombs, haywire, anything str5 or higher. Even str4 can bring it down if you can work in enough attacks.

Killing them is not the only way to deal with them. You have to declare jink before rolls to hit are made, so you can pretty much just scare them into uselessness. Once a serpent declares that it is jinking you should try to focus on other serpents and force them to jink as well. Even with as many twin linked shots as it has it is nowhere near as scary when it snap fires. This strat however is assuming that the opponent is going true serpent spam and has nothing scarier than min squads of dire avengers inside. If it is carrying wraithguard or guardians you really should try to stop it.

Another way to ignore jink is with blast weapons. Aim at something close to the serpent and hope it scatters onto it. The serpent cannot declare a jink at that point. It is kind of abusive but hey, you can do it.

Also anything that anyone above has said (except for minigun762) works as well. You could also do what most people do and just buy an imperial knight and bring it with you against eldar. Fight 3+ cover with 3+ invul. Also the knights are great units for using all of the above tactics I've suggested! Almost any serpent will try to jink when it sees a str9 melta pie plate coming down on it. And if it scatters onto a nearby serpent even better!

Johnnytorrance wrote:
It's tricky but a chaptermaster, with SS and burning blade on a bike, a Libby with hammer hand on bike, and shield eternal, a command squad on bikes as well. The CM will be swinging the burning blade at STR 9

Or you could just swing a Thunderhammer at S8. You're hitting back armor anyway when you assault. Their back is only 10 and it's not protected by the shield or jinking.

 Eldarain wrote:
Legion of the Damned Melta squads would be effective.

People keep saying this, but it really isn't the case. So you have LoTD deep striking on turn 2/3. I don't shoot my serpent shield. Your expensive squad of 3 ignores cover melta shots will probably get two glances. Then I can move out of melta range, and a moderate amount of S6 shooting will remove your squad.

Assault them. Drop-pod marines, bikers, anything with Krak Grenades and can get a turn 2/3 assault off will do it. You need a certain amount of units for saturation too.

Belly wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Legion of the Damned Melta squads would be effective.

People keep saying this, but it really isn't the case. So you have LoTD deep striking on turn 2/3. I don't shoot my serpent shield. Your expensive squad of 3 ignores cover melta shots will probably get two glances. Then I can move out of melta range, and a moderate amount of S6 shooting will remove your squad.

Assault them. Drop-pod marines, bikers, anything with Krak Grenades and can get a turn 2/3 assault off will do it. You need a certain amount of units for saturation too.

hehe well said. And a Lotd squad is one hell of an expensive way to glance 2 HP before it gets wiped next turn. Amazes me how often people come up with this or the sternguard line.

As you say Assault/biker squads with krak nades are safest way. The point is if you have to invest massive weight of fire to bring down one serpent the eldar player has already won.

I wish people would just stop playing against people who bring serpent spam so it would discourage them from doing so.

 ultimentra wrote:
I wish people would just stop playing against people who bring serpent spam so it would discourage them from doing so.

What would eldar players bring for transports than?

 Desubot wrote:

 ultimentra wrote:
I wish people would just stop playing against people who bring serpent spam so it would discourage them from doing so.

What would eldar players bring for transports than?

I think the point he's making is that they're not being taken as a transport, they're being taken for the Serpent (in nubmers of 4+), with some avengers inside. I'm sure you know that, but saying "We don't have another dedicated transport!" doesn't make it not a cheesy list.

OR take a damn Falcon! In a week or two, I imagine you can ally in a Venom/Raider too

Apart from the sicaran I think the next best shooty option is 6 IF devs in a bunker with ammo dump, quad and 4 lascannons.
It means you get 3 bs4 lascannon shots, 1 bs5 lascannon shot and 4 tl bs4 auto cannon shots. All with tank hunter, and the lascannons rerolling 1's to hit.
Only looking at just over 2 glances if it uses its shield and jinks (with holofields), but then its used its shield and jinked...
Also it can't hurt the devs in their av14 bunker in return.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also they are shooting all game long and don't have the range issue of deepstriking melta after the first shot.

HOW MANY POINTS?!

Too many.

The best things to do are scare them into jinking or assault them, really.

In shooting, it all depends what army you're playing but anything designed to Glance them down (Pask Punsiher, Annibarge, etc.) is going to do a fairly good job.

Assault is a more reliable way of killing them. Spawn do it through weight of attacks but even regular Marines with krak grenades can kill them in assault.

Also wave serpents take down other wave serpents pretty nicely

Belly wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 ultimentra wrote:
I wish people would just stop playing against people who bring serpent spam so it would discourage them from doing so.

What would eldar players bring for transports than?

I think the point he's making is that they're not being taken as a transport, they're being taken for the Serpent (in nubmers of 4+), with some avengers inside. I'm sure you know that, but saying "We don't have another dedicated transport!" doesn't make it not a cheesy list.

OR take a damn Falcon! In a week or two, I imagine you can ally in a Venom/Raider too

Except I cannot fit 10 Guardians with Weapon Platform into a Falcon.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Assault is a more reliable way of killing them. Spawn do it through weight of attacks but even regular Marines with krak grenades can kill them in assault.

That is assuming you can catch them. They are mobile, hard to kill, and have extreme range with potent firepower. I cannot find any downside to them whatsoever.

Stupid xenos scum and their foul technology.

Serpents are hard to deal with via shooting.
However, they will go down rather easily in cc.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Serpents are hard to deal with via shooting.
However, they will go down rather easily in cc.

And it's super easy to catch a fast skimmer with extreme range in close combat.

-Matt

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Serpents are hard to deal with via shooting.
However, they will go down rather easily in cc.

And it's super easy to catch a fast skimmer with extreme range in close combat.

-Matt

Actually, its not.
My Eldar list has 5 to 6 Serpents, all with tl scatterlasers, underslung shuricannons.
My Serpents get inside 24'' range asap and then move slowly while taking the enemy under heavy fire.
If the enemy gets close, Dire Avengers or Guardians dismount and contribute to the gun line.

However, fast moving units are still a threat, like TWC, Maulerfiends, Bikers, and what not.

I think he was being sarcastic :-p

i can sympathise with you on the wave serpent spam - those feckless space-elves probably think that 'laser lock' makes sense, and that a force field that can suddenly project almost as far as a conversion beamer and ignores cover isn't over done, despite the fact that it ignores cover and even flyers cant jink against it..

the sicarian battle tank is looking like the sweetest deal at 135pts, but i'd like to put forward something a little different? not as good, sadly.

the ordo reductor has access to the imperial avenger strike fighter 150pts with two lascannons and an avenger megabolter (S6 AP3 heavy7).
give it battle servitor control +15pts for the tank hunters USR
add two hellstrike missiles +20pts Range 72" S8 AP3 ordinance1 one use.

it has a +1 to its BS against ground targets (brings it to BS4)
in one round of shooting it gives out:
2 S9 AP2
7 S6 AP 3
1 S8 AP3 ordinance
all get re-rolls, but pens probably get turned to glances, but loads of glances is what you want! [185pts total]

an eldar special alternative setup is giving it battle servitor control (+15) and two multi-lasers (+30pts) for 6 more S6 shots (at AP6), giving:
7 S6 AP3
6 S6 AP6
1 S9 AP2
again, its all in the glances.[195pts]

that said, the perfidious space-hippy will still get his(?) cover save.

but, if youre playing ordo reductor then he's going to HATE thallax >
they drop cover save rolls by 2! and if you put an archmagos reductor and a MC photon thruster (from HH book 2) with thallax, they get his tank hunter rule for being in a squad with him, give them phase plasma fusils and go for sixes. the magos will almost always hit with his two shots and this causes a blind test which might have his wave serpent firing snap shots and then the pointy eared heretic snap shooting at you and only has a 5+ cover save.

In no particular order: Bikes in assault, sicaran, and grav centurions with tiggy giving them ignores cover. A landraider with the centurions would be useful as it could be used to block LoS to other serpents to prevent return fire.


If you are ok with allies then an imperial knight should do pretty well too just make sure to keep its front facing towards most of the serpents.

Another good shout may be a Roc pattern storm eagle with tankhunter. 4 st8 shots, 2 st9 ap2 shots, and against another serp a multimelta shot, all twinlinked all rerolling failed pens.
What's great about the Roc pattern Storm Eagle for anti-serp, is that as a flyer it is not coming in until after turn 1. This means the eldar player has to decide whether to shoot his shields or not, if he does, then when the storm eagle arrives, it can destroy a serp and force another to jink. If they don't it still has a good chance of destroying a serp. Quite expensive mind...