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.

I've been wanting to do a Smallish Exodite force and got my Wave Serpent proxies a few weeks back. Friend and I have been considering splitting the Wake the Dead box set. Is it viable to use just the weapon sprues from one Wave Serpent kit to set up three other serpents, or are some of the options significantly less effective than others?

Depends on what you want your wave serpent(s) to do. The optimum build right now seems to be triple shuriken cannon, which is best for carrying troops that you want to push forward. Missiles/Star Cannons/Bright Lances are situational as they restrict your ability to move the serpent and shoot effectively.

Triple cannon is good for skirmishing and providing cover for an aspect warrior rush (since it can carry 12 elves / 6 wraithguard) as it can move and fire without penalty, or advance and fire at a -1. I've had some success in my local games with a Twin Starcannon build as a medium/heavy infantry and bike sweeper that takes a serious amount of focused firepower to neutralize.

If you're looking for an elfy Leman Russ you're unfortunately not going to have much luck. Craftworlds doesnt have a unit that can fulfill the MBT role the way most other factions can.

If you know anyone who plays Eldar, they have plenty of spare weapon sprues.

Serpents typically want triple Shuriken Cannons. Which is one of the most often used Heavies. But so many CWE kits come with heavy sprues.

I enjoy having one serpent with twin Brightlances. Not competitive, but fun. It dropped a LR to 1W on the bottom of turn 1! (that's the best possible it can do outside 12" - my BL Serpent doesn't have an underslung Cannon.)

My caution about Wake the Dead is that your Exodites should probably be using Dryad and Treemen models for their Wraiths!

Also, I demand you post pictures of your Exodites!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Our MBT is the Falcon. A BL Falcon is a weaker QuadLas Pred for fewer points. About equal (a little worse) per point until you factor in Chapter Traits (then they're much better).

Bharring wrote:

Our MBT is the Falcon. A BL Falcon is a weaker QuadLas Pred for fewer points. About equal (a little worse) per point until you factor in Chapter Traits (then they're much better).

Except it's outperformed by the Serpent in every aspect. Better survivability, nearly equivalent firepower (Dual Brightlance + Shuricannon Serpent is only slightly behind a BL + Shuricannon Falcon), better transport capacity plus a baked in Smite for all of...two points more for similar loadouts. Oh and you can take as many as you want.

All of that is of course before Spinners and Prisms enter the equation, which you're gonna take for more point efficient killing anyway.

I favour the triple shuricannon build and rely on Fire Prisms and Dark Reapers for the bulk of my heavy firepower.

Yes, a Brightlance Serpent is simply a better Falcon. Because internal balance is for chumps. As strong as our book has typically been, internal balance is alien to it.

Bharring wrote:
If you know anyone who plays Eldar, they have plenty of spare weapon sprues.

Spoiler:

Serpents typically want triple Shuriken Cannons. Which is one of the most often used Heavies. But so many CWE kits come with heavy sprues.

I enjoy having one serpent with twin Brightlances. Not competitive, but fun. It dropped a LR to 1W on the bottom of turn 1! (that's the best possible it can do outside 12" - my BL Serpent doesn't have an underslung Cannon.)

My caution about Wake the Dead is that your Exodites should probably be using Dryad and Treemen models for their Wraiths!

Also, I demand you post pictures of your Exodites!

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Our MBT is the Falcon. A BL Falcon is a weaker QuadLas Pred for fewer points. About equal (a little worse) per point until you factor in Chapter Traits (then they're much better).

I would be happy to share pictures, but right now all I can offer are some shots of some poor, beat up Demigryph Knights (Assault Walkers) I snagged at a local swap meet,the unopened boxes of my Wave Serpents (Prince Imrik on Dragon from this summer's MTO release), and a box of various sprue bits from Ebay. I don't foresee this future army being terribly competitive, but I plan to have fun with the modeling since I haven't really done any heavy conversions outside of making a second Tzaangor Shaman from a 6th edition Gor torso I found in my old bits box. I want to see where these two conversions go before I pick up the Sylvaneth figures for the Wraith conversions; definitely on my list of wants, but I'm going to try and finish one thing at a time.

It sounds like I need to check with some friends and see if anyone has a few extra shuriken Cannons. At least one can be decked out with BL since I've got a trio.
Are the heavy sprues all the same across the board? I wasn't sure if the weapons for say, the guardian platform were the same as the transport.

Thank you all for the info; I greatly appreciate it.

Stick to the triple shuriken cannons, with vectored engines.
I did get someone smarter than me to do the math hammer, twin bright lance loadouts are pretty underwhelming in terms of damage. The much maligned falcon with bright lance comfortably outperforms it and it even outputs more damage than a single fire prism.
The serpent is an amazing transport but a very middling tank.

 MurderPancake wrote:

It sounds like I need to check with some friends and see if anyone has a few extra shuriken Cannons. At least one can be decked out with BL since I've got a trio.
Are the heavy sprues all the same across the board? I wasn't sure if the weapons for say, the guardian platform were the same as the transport.

Thank you all for the info; I greatly appreciate it.

The sprues that come with the WS have holes in the side for side-mounting on pegs. Conveniently, a perfect fit for two 2mm x 2mm magnets to stack for easy swapping.

WL/WW/guardian platforms are designed for top mounts. The use a rectangular slot/post to line up. This can be shaved off and magnets sunk into them, but not as easily as the side mounts. I don’t think you can get a separate sprue of the these, but if you are getting guns loose off of ebay/sellers, be careful what you order.


I’ve had some success with BL serpents. The sit back in a corner with a squad of guardians inside near/on an objective and toss shots downrange. If something gets close, I deploy the ablative chaff to try to keep the threat away from the tank/objective. But as guardians have a low life expectancy in the open, they can’t hold for long. Which is why they spend most of the game buttoned up in the WS.

kingheff wrote:
Stick to the triple shuriken cannons, with vectored engines.
I did get someone smarter than me to do the math hammer, twin bright lance loadouts are pretty underwhelming in terms of damage. The much maligned falcon with bright lance comfortably outperforms it and it even outputs more damage than a single fire prism.
The serpent is an amazing transport but a very middling tank.

The thing about Falcons is, all they need is a small point reduction (15-20 or so) and they'd be fantastic in the Craftworld arsenal. Their role isn't heavy armor destroyer (that's what prisms are for) - it's a heavy skirmish unit. Unlike the Serpent it can take a relatively versatile loadout to be a threat to vees, heavy and light infantry alike.

As to BL Falcons versus Prisms, I think they were comparing to the Lance profile, which is a trap. You want either Focused or Dispersed. The weight of fire that Focused puts out is (on average) about 15-20% more efficient than Lance on the T7-T8 high save / invuln save targets (which is what you want your armor busters for). Dispersed is of course for mowing down waves of infantry of any flavor as the T6 AP-3 profile is hot smoking death to anything short of Custodes or SS units.

I don't remember the specifics of the numbers in regards to the prism Vs falcon comparison but I've just done a quick check on a mathhammer calculator and against both T7 & T8 targets and the falcon does outperform a double tapping prism in focus mode. That's why you need multiple prisms and CP to fuel them. Once you link fire prisms are great.
The real secret is to use a crimson Hunter exarch for tank hunting, they outperform all the tanks by approximate two wounds per turn for a very small points increase.
But I still say the triple cannon, vectored serpent is the only sensible option. 144 pts gets you an amazing transport, leave the tank busting to the wraithguard or fire dragons inside.

Yup, that's why I always describe Prisms as a three or none proposition. Once they're linked you're off to the races.

I prefer the Nightwing profile for Craftworld fliers, though the Starcannon CHE is quite potent. Cheaper than a CHE, near equivalent anti-armor efficacy, guns for hordesweeping and an invuln save.

But I'm also a filthy souper so there's stiff competition from Razorwings.

As awesome as the Fire Prism stratagem is, the Fire Prism itself - even doubletapping - is typically not going to have the dakka of anything in the same points class. It pays an obscene amount for it's versatility (two viable fire modes and super long range).

But it looks amazing. So it's worth bringing one for that reason.