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 Orock wrote:

 pizzaguardian wrote:

 Orock wrote:

Chancetragedy wrote:
What list are you talking about? Because non of the lists present in the top 10 of nova have been around since early 6th.

wave serpent spam has been around for years, and 6th made necron crossant spam a thing too.

You mean 13 months? Because that's how long the eldar codex has been out there, it is a june 2013 release.

Even necron bakery has only really been around since 6th codex drop which is less then 28 months.

Serpent spam is strong granted, but it doesn't auto win in a tournament such as NOVA, you can't just disregard player skill.

wave serpent spam was ALSO popular and good in their last book, in fact during parkinglothammer, they were even better! So no, that hasent been a "new thing". They haven't been NOT good for years.

Wave Serpents were not good before, they were just the only option an Eldar had to bring the otherwise useless aspect warriors / harlies to the front.

Yes, 1,08 years, that's correct.

Serpent Haters: ruining every thread for 13 months.

I can't believe people can be so pissed off at Eldar for stealing the imperium's show for 13 months.

Serpents are way overpowered for the points. They simply have too many good things. When it was known Taudar was dead many eldar players I know immediately said they would switch to serpent spam.

Compared to the meta, no. The game is chalk full of bs right now. Serpents are just one more color on the canvas.

Care to name a few others ? I'd love to know your thoughts.

Serpents have too many ways to guarantee wounds. High Strength, Twin Linked, Ignores Cover, decent range on almost every weapon and great mobility, plus incredible resiliency AND ObSec.

Of course they are undercosted for what they do. That's why you max out on them. That's the point of redundancy.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Care to name a few others ? I'd love to know your thoughts.

3 Knights + 3 Riptides
3 Knights + Whatever
3 Knights + LOTD
Screamerstar
Jetstar
Beaststar
Summoning spam
Summoning sync'ed into lists that are well-rounded otherwise
Scarab-farming Crons (yup, they're still quite good)
Blob Guard (also still quite good)
Drop marines (lol thanks to obsec)
Biker marines (lol thanks to lots of things)

You want me to keep going? Most of those even go so far as to hard counter serpent spam, as well.

EDIT/PS - Serpents are also ridonculous. But the game is FULL of ridonculous right now. It's not like everything is peachy keen and the Serpents are just this OP wreckin' machine ruining it for everybody. Depending on your outlook, the game as a whole is ruined, or the game as a whole is great ... because SO MUCH OF IT is total bullhonkey.

Serpents are very cheap for what you get say versus Knight spamming. Psychic dependent stars are not all that hot anymore due to the decrease in reliability. Things like bikers and podding Marines it's hard to objectively compare them with serpents based upon actual games - the former did very well at BAO while serpent were king of the hill at NOVA.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Serpents are very cheap for what you get say versus Knight spamming. Psychic dependent stars are not all that hot anymore due to the decrease in reliability. Things like bikers and podding Marines it's hard to objectively compare them with serpents based upon actual games - the former did very well at BAO while serpent were king of the hill at NOVA.

One serpent army pilioted by one of the best players globally did well at NOVA. That wasn't true across the board (i.e., he faced an army that had a couple serpents, but was primarily a beast-star, in the final). Knights and daemon summoning in general performed better at NOVA.

A serpent is cheap, and powerful, arguably overpowered. So are knights. So are most of the other things mentioned. All of them create serious problems for people who can't tackle the particular match-up. That's the general point. It's fine to say Serpents are BS OP. It's not fine to pretend they're sitting on a pedestal and peeing in everyone else's cheerios. Basically the entire batch of cheerios is soaked in urine at this point.

Serpents + minimum Jetbikes (also undercosted) + high likelihood of turn 5 finish = very powerful army.

But I very much agree Mike, in that today there is such an abundance of riches that any one unit cannot be accused of breaking the game.

It's not like 5th Ed when the entire meta was Strikes in Psybacks and Psyflemen dreads because they were so far head & shoulders above everything else. Such diversity gives you the opportunity to be intelligent and creative. And to be honest that is what Tony's list was. He used his creativity to bring a list that didn't look obviously broken compared to Trip Knights, Beast/Seerstar, Summoning Spam etc and played it well with the mission pack.

But yeh, Phil Kelly is a moron for giving Serpent Shields Ignores Cover.

I think a lot of the units listed here are properly costed such as IK. There has always been the broken cheese but wow eldar are way up there.

IK are fine. Adamantium Lance formation is stupid. Re-rollable saves for no extra cost on a well costed unit.

MVBrandt wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Serpents are very cheap for what you get say versus Knight spamming. Psychic dependent stars are not all that hot anymore due to the decrease in reliability. Things like bikers and podding Marines it's hard to objectively compare them with serpents based upon actual games - the former did very well at BAO while serpent were king of the hill at NOVA.

One serpent army pilioted by one of the best players globally did well at NOVA. That wasn't true across the board (i.e., he faced an army that had a couple serpents, but was primarily a beast-star, in the final). Knights and daemon summoning in general performed better at NOVA.

A serpent is cheap, and powerful, arguably overpowered. So are knights. So are most of the other things mentioned. All of them create serious problems for people who can't tackle the particular match-up. That's the general point. It's fine to say Serpents are BS OP. It's not fine to pretend they're sitting on a pedestal and peeing in everyone else's cheerios. Basically the entire batch of cheerios is soaked in urine at this point.

We'll that is settled....I am not eating breakfast with you hehe

Mike is right. There are a variety of good list out there and serpent spam is not unbeatable. Drop marines eat it for breakfast (pun intended there hehe ), summoning lists are very good, and seeker star is still very good especially with FMC, Pask star is very good against it as we'll. They all have a counter.

Why do drop Marines eat serpents? They can jink then zoom away leaving them stranded.

Because it shuts down a lot of their shooting when they jink. Snapshots, even twin linked, really decreases their firepower. Just like ignoring a shooting vehicle when you get a shaken/stunned result. You effectively remove 3/4 of it's firepower, making it a high strength ap- storm bolter.

Jink is also a 3+ cover save, so if you have any way to ignore cover (cough librarian or wargear cough), meltas will eat it, esp if you get behind it. If he uses his shield, then you can nuke it next turn. Strategy can beat them if you have the tools, which in the land of IKs, you should have some melta anyways.

Yes but counting on psychic power is random. LotD is really good but don't seem to have really caught on yet. Even if they have to snap fire a turn or two and survive I think eldar have the upper hand.

That's actually hard to say. If you jink, your ability to kill a 5-man marine squad is basically shot, and due to Kraks you can't really afford to fire at them. So you're talking about the first set of pods on Turn 1 forcing you to jink then zoom and thus neutering any meaningful firepower, and you're going to have to do it again with most of them on Turn 2 and/or Turn 3 as the rest of the pods and MSU squads come in with meltas, basically covering the board. Now you're stuck in a situation where any old 5 man squad can damage or kill a serpent on the charge due to kraks and melta shots, and there are going to be 16+ obsec units to deal with all over the board, on objectives and off. It's not like the old super gakky SW drop army where all the hunters were in big target squads together and you could only have but so many in total. It's not a fun or good match for the Eldar in terms of ability to actually win the game, even if the pod players' placement /location is so terrible that the serpents can actually find safe haven away from them and lathe away any assault attempts.

Pretty straightforward "bad match" for the serpents.

MVBrandt wrote:

One serpent army pilioted by one of the best players globally did well at NOVA.

I'm curious, how did you arrive to the conclusion that he's one of the best players globally? I have no opinion on the matter, but I'm interested in what fuels this claim. Did he win the world championships or a similar event that allowed you to draw this comparison?

He's won the Nova 4 out of 5 times. He also was on the top scoring team at the Adepticon team tournament. Unless there's some sort of Olympic 40k Tournament, those are some pretty great credentials.

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
He's won the Nova 4 out of 5 times. He also was on the top scoring team at the Adepticon team tournament. Unless there's some sort of Olympic 40k Tournament, those are some pretty great credentials.

He's also placed 2nd in AdeptiChamps twice, and won AdeptiChamps once, in his last 3 times there. Also been repeat member and often high scoring member of Team America for several years, yada yada yada. Has won some other GTs in the process. I would certainly, however, not call him the best in the world ... just one of the better.

Well Tony has won NOVA what 4 times? Won Adepticon, Won Daboyz, been on the American ETC team a few times now. So I would say that would classify him as one of the top players globally. It doesn't mean he is the best, but in any random grouping of players he is likely to be at or near the top.

Breng77 wrote:
Well Tony has won NOVA what 4 times? Won Adepticon, Won Daboyz, been on the American ETC team a few times now. So I would say that would classify him as one of the top players globally. It doesn't mean he is the best, but in any random grouping of players he is likely to be at or near the top.

What were his results and that of his teams like at the ETC then? That's the only tournament I picked from your list that has anything to do with the word globally so far.

That said, nice record.

 Therion wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Well Tony has won NOVA what 4 times? Won Adepticon, Won Daboyz, been on the American ETC team a few times now. So I would say that would classify him as one of the top players globally. It doesn't mean he is the best, but in any random grouping of players he is likely to be at or near the top.

What were his results and that of his teams like at the ETC then? That's the only tournament I picked from your list that has anything to do with the word globally so far.

That said, nice record.

Team America placed highly ... 4th I think / highest yet? Tony was in the top half of the team, a point or three below the other top performers. I can't say your comment about globally is quite accurate, however ... a lot of top tier ETC players attend both NOVA and AdeptiCon from Europe each year ... which is super awesome.

The other issue is the way ETC functions it makes it hard to say about results due to attacker defender. I would make the argument that all attendees are among "the best players globally"

United States is rank #11 on the 2014 Elo40k list, and your guy is in the top half of the team according to your words. I'm not trying to piss you off or take anything away from this guy, as I don't know him and don't have a horse in the race, but I'm not sure what you're trying to gain by pumping someone's tires.

 Therion wrote:
United States is rank #11 on the 2014 Elo40k list, and your guy is in the top half of the team according to your words. I'm not trying to piss you off or take anything away from this guy, as I don't know him and don't have a horse in the race, but I'm not sure what you're trying to gain by pumping someone's tires.

I actually was just referring to him as a top tier player. #11 on ELo40K list? I don't know what the Elo40k list is. More's the pity for me! You went at his status as a player, and folks responded to your questions. Responding to questions isn't exactly the same as pumping tires. It's kind of a little silly to get involved in a thread, challenge something and demand explanation, and then act as if people are just randomly pumping someone up. Cool story, though!

You should come take a crack along with the other regular Euros at NOVA next year!

I've seen good eldar players handle pod armies quite well. Being able to jink even when not have moved is a huge boon for skimmers in general.

MVBrandt wrote:

 Therion wrote:
United States is rank #11 on the 2014 Elo40k list, and your guy is in the top half of the team according to your words. I'm not trying to piss you off or take anything away from this guy, as I don't know him and don't have a horse in the race, but I'm not sure what you're trying to gain by pumping someone's tires.

I actually was just referring to him as a top tier player. #11 on ELo40K list? I don't know what the Elo40k list is. More's the pity for me! You went at his status as a player, and folks responded to your questions. Responding to questions isn't exactly the same as pumping tires. It's kind of a little silly to get involved in a thread, challenge something and demand explanation, and then act as if people are just randomly pumping someone up. Cool story, though!

You should come take a crack along with the other regular Euros at NOVA next year!

Let's meet at a major tournament in Germany or Poland instead. That way we both go to a foreign country where some of the best players globally regularly play at.

 Therion wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

One serpent army pilioted by one of the best players globally did well at NOVA.

I'm curious, how did you arrive to the conclusion that he's one of the best players globally? I have no opinion on the matter, but I'm interested in what fuels this claim. Did he win the world championships or a similar event that allowed you to draw this comparison?

He is without a doubt one of the best players in the United States, which is a very large and competitive 40k environment, as evidenced by his winning the vast majority of the most competitive events in that market that he as attended including 4/5 at NOVA and Adepticon etc. Its a very safe conclusion considering the US has almost double the population of the UK, Germany, and Poland combined making it likely the largest single 40k market. We don't have any definitives without some form of uniform tracking mechanism, but it is a very safe conclusion.

ETC is a poor measure of each players individual skill as the Attacker Defender format can easily skew individual player's abilities.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I've seen good eldar players handle pod armies quite well. Being able to jink even when not have moved is a huge boon for skimmers in general.

All you need are three glances...it's not really that complicated. I have seen good Eldar players lose to pod marines too so as a generic statement it is quite void. I have seen bad pod players beat serpent spam as we'll. Not sure why you seem to think serpent spam is the do all beat all broken army you make it out to be.

I have seen eldar players roll ungodly numbers of cover saves. It's not as easy as you try to make it sound. And don't put words in my mouth.