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I know this is extremely embarrassing to ask but why all the hate got the wave serpent? Is it because it's shield, it's a dedicated transport or because it's a skimmer because I honestly don't know. I mean it's 120 pts(base +scatter) for a 12 12 10 skimmer within a d6 ap - gun.
On a side note when do you use the shield?
Thanks

It's the shield. Everything else is available elsewhere (Scatter Walkers, Falcons cover skimmer + transport etc.).

Here's a very recent thread on the shield: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/561386.page

The maneuverability of the Serpent, added to the 60" range, means it's very easy to get side-armour shots against things like basilisks, predators etc (anything with a drastic (+/-2) difference between front and side), ignoring cover (so no hull down or jink), S7 hits (although it is a random number of shots). Combined with a 4+ jink (from holo fields) means it doesn't really need the protective element all the time (Serpents go down when assaulted, and the shield doesn't help there).

So people stick back with their wave serpents, mine are for transporting my scythe guard up and the 2+ pen to glance in combination with my first initial flat out meaning 3+ is pretty resilient. Never thought of vehicle hunting strangely enough though I did have fun against some land speeders... Thanks for the insight

The wave serpent is undercosted for what it can do. And the crux of the problem is the shield.

If the shield could be shot once a game, it would be balanced. Instead it roughly doubles the damage output of the tank.

The trouble with them is when they show up en masse with scatter lasers. Laser lock only needs to score a hit to TL the shield and that *random* number of shots is d6+1, averaging 4.5 shots each Serpent. So when you've got four serpents on the board, you're looking at 18 STR 7 BS 4 TL shots at turn. (That's 16 STR 7 hits and 10.67 STR 6 hits on average). From 500pts of transport. You can see how when you start getting up into people playing with 6 or 7, it gets pretty ridiculous.

It is a very good tank. Another big factor is if you remember prior to the Eldar codex, the standard talk for 6th edition was that vehicles were dead and army design shifted towards killing massed infantry. Eldar reversed that trend and now players are having a difficult time trying to build an army that can deal with both vehicles and non vehicle based armies.

Ironically, I think if folks think back to 5th edition armies and make some minor tweaks (IE: an abundance of anti armor with a touch of 'ignore cover', the WS spam army goes away, but how well would that type of army do against a Demon horde type army?) The armies I've seen do well against WS spam are Tau and Eldar-both which have a good amount of ignore cover, med/high strength shooting.

It is mostly the shield but more than that it is all the things the wave serpent brings together.

1.) Shield is long range ignores cover, high strength, high rate of fire shooting. In addition it is built in defense against other armies alpha striking your serpents as you downgrade penetrating hits to glancing.

2.) It is the ability to take a gun that then twin links the shield (which is itself twin linked), giving the vehicle lots of twin linked S6 and 7 shooting.

3.) It is the durability of the serpent being AV 12 with a built in cover save (that can easily be improved)

4.) It is that it is on a fast skimmer so that it can move to get LOS and good shots while still shooting everything.

5.) It is being a dedicated transport - meaning you can take what up to 9 or so of these in your army.

If you took away any one of these it would still be a good unit, but not as powerful as it is right now.

1.) If the shield were shorter range, or did not ignore cover, or one use only...it is good but not amazing.

2.)If you could not twin link the shield it greatly reduces how effective it is.

3.)If this were a DE vehicle with AV10 or 11 and opentopped...no big deal.

4.) If it were a regular tank like a chimera and needed to snapshoot weapons if it moved more than 6" (and with 3 weapons I think it would need to snapshoot one anyway) it would put out less fire.

5.) IF all these options came on say the falcon in heavy support, it would still be a great vehicle but you would max out at 3 (in single FOC games), so it would be managable.

Well said Breng77

 labmouse42 wrote:
Well said Breng77

Agreed. Tau were pushing the limits of being balanced, with WraithKnight, Seer Bike Council, and WS Spam, Elder are unbalanced.

 Lobukia wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:
Well said Breng77

Agreed. Tau were pushing the limits of being balanced, with WraithKnight, Seer Bike Council, and WS Spam, Elder are unbalanced.

So Kelly redid his 4th edition Eldar Dex, replacing HoloFalcons with Wave Serpants and then adding in better Prisms.

Still shocks me people consider him the best.

Long story ahead...

Last year in a campaign my Necrons got tabled by some Dark Eldar. It was a Hammer & Anvil deployment and he pretty much demolished my army before anything I had got into range. After that I went out to find the fastest army in 40k and discoverd Fritz and Eldar Corsair on youtube(both of these guys rock!). Next step was getting everything together.

So I bought some bikes and thought that the Eldar Battleforce box was a pretty good deal, and I could use the Guardians out of the box to make cooler Jetbike Riders. My plan with the Wave Serpents(I had 3 of them) were to buy bitz for them to make Fire Prisms. Then I found out you could pretty much buy the whole Fire Prism kit for the cost of the Fire Prism bitz so I went ahead and spent the extra cash. So I had a sizeable army to paint and assemble when the new codex dropped.

Then came the escalation league.

A local shop in our area started up an Escalation League, and I thought great! Some much needed motivation to get this crap painted. Well I had just bought an airbrush and was learning how o use it. I had an extra WS chassis and experimented for 2 days, painting it over and over again to get a color scheme I liked. When I did I just decided to pump all 6 of my Grav Tanks out(3 WSs & 3 FPs/NSs). The league wascoming up in a few days so instead of trying to paint up a crap load of bikes, I just decided to do up my Dire Avengers and put them in the WSs. My 500pt list was 2x 5 Dire Avengers in WSs and 3 Jetbikes and a Jetbike Warlock(alternate comp for the league).

Oh the humanity! At the 500, 750, and 1000pt levels it was a joke. I still feel guilty about playing those things. I found myself doing stupid things just so my opponent could kill something. Now when we got to the 1250 and 1500 it kindof evened out but still. I don't think I would ever field the 3rd one unless the guy across from me just needed to learn a lesson.

So here is an Eldar player saying Yes, WSs should be nerfed. Either make the shield a 1 shot and drop the serpents 10pts, or make it where once you fire the shield you can't use it as a shield anymore. Oh and 36" range.

It surprises me when anyone complains about any of the authors (or Lauds them) They all have hits and misses.

Cruddace- IG was good, Nids were bad.
Ward - SM, BA, GK, Crons only GK were terrible op
Kelly - Wolves, DE, Eldar, CSM, Daemons- CSM is crap overall, Eldar- extremely powerful
Vetock- DA = meh, Tau = Powerful

 Lobukia wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:
Well said Breng77

Agreed. Tau were pushing the limits of being balanced, with WraithKnight, Seer Bike Council, and WS Spam, Elder are unbalanced.

I still think Tau are slightly better of a list. Eldar have no Interceptor ability at all without an ADL or Allies. A good hammer and anvil list with units like Drop Pods or other reliable Deep Striking units can cause even experienced Eldar players some confusion and possible forced mistakes whereas Tau just shoot 'em up with Interceptor-sides.

Because it's the Eldar Codex's Helldrake.

It's the one unit/model that punches well above it's weight, and some codices simply can't counter it yet.

Yes, the Eldar codex is pretty darn strong. But I have full faith that it's only a short matter of time (3-6 months, i'm looking at you IG) until the next beefed up codex comes out, and all the nerd rage goes towards that.

Helldrake -> Riptides -> Wave Serpents -> ?

And the best part is, so many Eldar players already had Wave Serpents, so GW couldn't make as much money off them (like the 'drakes).

I have 4 wave serpents. They have a bright lance, 2 missile launchers and a starcannon on them (1 per WS, not all at once )

Does that make me a bad person?

 hiveof_chimera wrote:
I know this is extremely embarrassing to ask but why all the hate got the wave serpent? Is it because it's shield, it's a dedicated transport or because it's a skimmer because I honestly don't know. I mean it's 120 pts(base +scatter) for a 12 12 10 skimmer within a d6 ap - gun.
On a side note when do you use the shield?
Thanks

It's got an obscene amount of firepower that's very easily twin linked while still moving quite fast each turn, can be made to be *very* difficult to kill relative to most other vehicles in the game (particularly tracked vehicles) that got made hilariously easy to kill, and can be spammed without regard to FoC slots.

moving 12", firing 4 TL S6 shots and then D6+1 S7 AP- Ignores cover shots that get to be TL'd as long as at least one of the aformentioned four BS4 TL'd scatterlaser shots hits, and still benefitting from a 4+ cover save in the open (hooray holofields) is astounding mobility, survivability, and firepower. Alternatively, being able to move flat out and benefit from a 3+ cover save in the open and downgrade pen's to glances on a 2+ makes the damn near impossible to kill before it gets where it wants to be and dumps its transport load.

It's the same issue everyone had with the Falcon in 4E, just on the Wave Serpent now.

I have been aving 0 issues killing WS's...

but then again, my army has mobility with jump troops, and krak grenades...or shooting rear armour.


gotta adapt, you cannot just play this game as a "turtle" and expect to leafblower stuff away. eldar are super mobile/dakka-y but the WS die to shooting/CC just like anything else... having a decent cover save isnt huge deal...

yes it gets a decent amount of shots, but at 130 pts, its comparable to a vendetta, and has hard counters that are 130pts or less
ie, interceptors that can get behind it and shoot/assault it dead, 5 are 130 pts
lascannons w command squad to twin lin kthem or force cover rerolls, is 105pts
130pt vendetta does great against WS"s
and so on,

its just super new, and people are adjusting to the new meta, which is weight of fire,


I hear the same complaints about WS' as I do with EVERYTHING i feild that stomps people... my GK's shunt is OP.. my IG's large amount of heavy weapons is OP... my orks are the only thing no one has called OP yet, and thats only because I havnt bothered to take them to a tournament yet.

 PredaKhaine wrote:
I have 4 wave serpents. They have a bright lance, 2 missile launchers and a starcannon on them (1 per WS, not all at once )

Does that make me a bad person?

Yes, it does. They should all have Scatter Lasers.

 easysauce wrote:
I have been aving 0 issues killing WS's...

but then again, my army has mobility with jump troops, and krak grenades...or shooting rear armour.


gotta adapt, you cannot just play this game as a "turtle" and expect to leafblower stuff away. eldar are super mobile/dakka-y but the WS die to shooting/CC just like anything else... having a decent cover save isnt huge deal...

yes it gets a decent amount of shots, but at 130 pts, its comparable to a vendetta, and has hard counters that are 130pts or less
ie, interceptors that can get behind it and shoot/assault it dead, 5 are 130 pts
lascannons w command squad to twin lin kthem or force cover rerolls, is 105pts
130pt vendetta does great against WS"s
and so on,

its just super new, and people are adjusting to the new meta, which is weight of fire,


I hear the same complaints about WS' as I do with EVERYTHING i feild that stomps people... my GK's shunt is OP.. my IG's large amount of heavy weapons is OP... my orks are the only thing no one has called OP yet, and thats only because I havnt bothered to take them to a tournament yet.

Can I borrow your magic jump troops? Because my FNP ASM with shield of sanguinius are ending up in coffins. How are you getting within 8" to assault with enough krak grenade dudes alive?

Martel732 wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
I have been aving 0 issues killing WS's...

but then again, my army has mobility with jump troops, and krak grenades...or shooting rear armour.


gotta adapt, you cannot just play this game as a "turtle" and expect to leafblower stuff away. eldar are super mobile/dakka-y but the WS die to shooting/CC just like anything else... having a decent cover save isnt huge deal...

yes it gets a decent amount of shots, but at 130 pts, its comparable to a vendetta, and has hard counters that are 130pts or less
ie, interceptors that can get behind it and shoot/assault it dead, 5 are 130 pts
lascannons w command squad to twin lin kthem or force cover rerolls, is 105pts
130pt vendetta does great against WS"s
and so on,

its just super new, and people are adjusting to the new meta, which is weight of fire,


I hear the same complaints about WS' as I do with EVERYTHING i feild that stomps people... my GK's shunt is OP.. my IG's large amount of heavy weapons is OP... my orks are the only thing no one has called OP yet, and thats only because I havnt bothered to take them to a tournament yet.

Can I borrow you magic jump troops? Because my FNP ASM with shield of sanguinius are ending up in coffins. How are you getting within 8" to assault with enough krak grenade dudes alive?

I know this is gonna sound generic and sarcastic at first but hear me out...

Learn how to set up terrain.

We have a Blood Angels player in our area, and he understands the importance of the pre-battle game. The first piece he plops down is on the edge of his deployment zone, and the second one is 15" away(12" jump and some run room).

Granted I understand mass dakka kills anything.

If it doesn't block LOS, it doesn't matter except to create things for ASM to kill themselves on. Most terrain I've seen doesn't block LOS.

Also, if your army needs certain terrain conditions to be true to stand a chance, your list is clearly inferior.

I've been playing this since 2nd edition. I know how to manipulate terrain. It's not helping as much as you think.

Martel732 wrote:
If it doesn't block LOS, it doesn't matter except to create things for ASM to kill themselves on. Most terrain I've seen doesn't block LOS.

Also, if your army needs certain terrain conditions to be true to stand a chance, your list is clearly inferior.

I've been playing this since 2nd edition. I know how to manipulate terrain. It's not helping as much as you think.

If you aren't playing the Terrain game then you are just setting yourself up for failure. Are you saying that where you play they don't have 2" foamular hills, or any of the GW Imperial Sector type building with all the closed up sections. If they don't then bring your own. I know that's not the answer if ou play tournaments where you don't get the choice to set up terrain but still.

I have played since 2nd edition as well and I learned the importance of terrain the very first game I played. My horde of Genestealers never even made it across the board before the other guys Space Wolf Assault Cannon/Storm Shield Terminators mowed them all down. I let him set up the board because I didn't know better, but he basically made it a shooting gallery.

Saying terrain conditions make your list inferior is a stretch. Heck you could even buy an Aegis and set it up at the mid-board line if you were really desperate.

ahhh, should have said Bastion since you want Lin of Sight blockers.

 easysauce wrote:
I have been aving 0 issues killing WS's...

but then again, my army has mobility with jump troops, and krak grenades...or shooting rear armour.

Not every army has huge mobility, especially not the kind of mobility to match Fast Skimmers.

Krak grenades work yes, killing any vehicle in CC is absurdly easy, but the Wave Serpent can move enough that getting into CC shouldn't be easy if the Eldar Player doesn't want it to be.

Getting rear armor on a Wave Serpent requires similar high mobility or a Deep Strike, aside from that it really should never happen unless the Eldar player borked up, and not every army has the former 2 things routinely available to it.

gotta adapt, you cannot just play this game as a "turtle" and expect to leafblower stuff away. eldar are super mobile/dakka-y but the WS die to shooting/CC just like anything else... having a decent cover save isnt huge deal...

Methinks you don't play the same game as everyone else...

yes it gets a decent amount of shots, but at 130 pts, its comparable to a vendetta, and has hard counters that are 130pts or less

It's not just the number of shots, but the survivability and mobility, and the number of hardcounters that are 130pts or less aren't as "hard" or as common as you seem to think.

ie, interceptors that can get behind it and shoot/assault it dead, 5 are 130 pts

Probably not going to do much if it's running around with a 3+ cover save and even with a 4+ cover is more than likely to survive that quite fine.

lascannons w command squad to twin lin kthem or force cover rerolls, is 105pts

And the Wave Serpent can kill the team with exceeding ease (in fact HWS's are probably one of the best targets of Wave Serpents, given that all its guns will inflict ID on those poor T3 W2 bastards, ignoring cover with the shield cannon makes them rely on their poor 5+ armor, and Ld7 means they run easily (if they survive) and orders fail quite often, plus those orders require an HQ unit to assist, pushing the cost above 130pts

.
130pt vendetta does great against WS"s

yes but it's a similarly broken unit.

 easysauce wrote:
I have been aving 0 issues killing WS's...

but then again, my army has mobility with jump troops, and krak grenades...or shooting rear armour.


gotta adapt, you cannot just play this game as a "turtle" and expect to leafblower stuff away. eldar are super mobile/dakka-y but the WS die to shooting/CC just like anything else... having a decent cover save isnt huge deal...

yes it gets a decent amount of shots, but at 130 pts, its comparable to a vendetta, and has hard counters that are 130pts or less
ie, interceptors that can get behind it and shoot/assault it dead, 5 are 130 pts
lascannons w command squad to twin lin kthem or force cover rerolls, is 105pts
130pt vendetta does great against WS"s
and so on,

its just super new, and people are adjusting to the new meta, which is weight of fire,


I hear the same complaints about WS' as I do with EVERYTHING i feild that stomps people... my GK's shunt is OP.. my IG's large amount of heavy weapons is OP... my orks are the only thing no one has called OP yet, and thats only because I havnt bothered to take them to a tournament yet.

Really? who are you playing against that Naked Interceptors(the only ones that are 130 points) kill Waveserpents. So you get reaer shots with your S4 storm bolters, and deal on average 0.6 hull points of damage....Chances are the only way you get behind is by shunting so no assault that turn, then they move away....or shot those 5 models dead....

Can wave serpents die, sure, you can kill 1 or 2 in a turn if you are doing well...but when there are 7 and other things....it becomes much harder...oh and they are killing your threats too....

As for the terrain thing, what he is saying is that if it takes terrain to even out the game, then that is a statement about the army power (one needs terrain to have a chance, the other does not). But cover does not matter against a serpent, either it is ignored, or it is killing by weight of fire not AP, so marines don't really care.

Can you build a list to kill serpents? Sure you can, but it is not easy to do that and have it deal with some other meta threats.

x13rads wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If it doesn't block LOS, it doesn't matter except to create things for ASM to kill themselves on. Most terrain I've seen doesn't block LOS.

Also, if your army needs certain terrain conditions to be true to stand a chance, your list is clearly inferior.

I've been playing this since 2nd edition. I know how to manipulate terrain. It's not helping as much as you think.

If you aren't playing the Terrain game then you are just setting yourself up for failure. Are you saying that where you play they don't have 2" foamular hills, or any of the GW Imperial Sector type building with all the closed up sections. If they don't then bring your own. I know that's not the answer if ou play tournaments where you don't get the choice to set up terrain but still.

I have played since 2nd edition as well and I learned the importance of terrain the very first game I played. My horde of Genestealers never even made it across the board before the other guys Space Wolf Assault Cannon/Storm Shield Terminators mowed them all down. I let him set up the board because I didn't know better, but he basically made it a shooting gallery.

Saying terrain conditions make your list inferior is a stretch. Heck you could even buy an Aegis and set it up at the mid-board line if you were really desperate.

ahhh, should have said Bastion since you want Lin of Sight blockers.

What good is an aegis, or any cover really? The Wave Serpents are killing through weight of wounds, not armor penetration. And yes, if you need a wall of force between your list and theirs to do well, your list, by which I mean codex, not your skills, is inferior.

mhhmmm keep on complaining then,

those are tactics I actually use, to kill the WS i have played in tournies, if you want to just go "BUT THAT WONT WORK" i cannot help you....

and yes 5 marines will not be wiped out by one WS, and will get the krak grenade in assault, or just throw one...


I love how I tell people how I am actually beating WS spam.. then they tell me how the tactics I use that work, wont work, cause you know, the internets

A lot has to do with who is pushing the WS as well. In the games I've played in, the Eldar players have denied me the opportunity to do the things you describe. Because they know krak grenades can potentially hurt them.

 easysauce wrote:
mhhmmm keep on complaining then,

those are tactics I actually use, to kill the WS i have played in tournies, if you want to just go "BUT THAT WONT WORK" i cannot help you....

and yes 5 marines will not be wiped out by one WS, and will get the krak grenade in assault, or just throw one...


I love how I tell people how I am actually beating WS spam.. then they tell me how the tactics I use that work, wont work, cause you know, the internets

Mostly because the stuff you're tossing about is kinda silly. When you start talking about Lascannon HWS's, the least effective, least cost effective, and easiest killed heavy weapons unit in the game, and a unit which the Wave Serpent is particularly suited to dealing with due to it's abundance of S6+ multishot weaponry and ignores cover capabilities, people are going to have a hard time taking you seriously.

It can be difficult to discuss tactics as each game will be different. While there is merit to one posters tactical advise, it also is taking some liberties with the Eldar opponent's lack of tactics.

-If the Eldar player understands what he is facing, there won't be rear armor shots on his Wave Serpents unless the Eldar player has determined the risk/reward factor. It is simply too easy to avoid giving up rear armor. Knowing what your real threats is pretty instrumental and it should be a rare moment getting rear armor shots on a Wave Serpent. Not impossible, but not an easy task.

-One has to appreciate just how many wounds Wave Serpents can realistically dish out. Eldar players for years have taken an approach of weight of fire/wounds to whittle down MEQ. They had to adapt when 4th editon came around and nerfed the Starcannon. Eldar players had to learn to throw loads of shots and simply force armor saves. Nowadays, the Wave Serpent lends itself very well to this tactic.

-This tank can move 12", fire the twin linked Scatterlaser (3-4 hits), then fire the Shield (twin linked shooting) and then can Snap Fire a twin linked Shuriken Cannon. I average about 8 wounds per Wave Serpent on any T4 < unit. Very little of this shooting cares about a 3+ save as I'm more concerned about volume of fire. And the Shield is a pinning weapon...

-Terrain is of little concern unless it is very tall and completely blocks LOS. I know I use them and I am sure I am not alone, but the Ghostwalk Matrix for a Serpent Spam army is a must. That allows me to move the WS on top of terrain w/o fear, on hill crests, in ruins and all other crazy locations that will see over and around terrain. And the WS is not built to care about cover saves as it is volume of fire...

-Also of note is that a hillcrest gives a 4+ cover save as does a ruin. It's not hard to get the 25% coverage for the Wave Serpent; add in a Holofield and now it gets a 3+ save (assuming it moved and you don't have an 'ignore cover' attack). Then, see why Ghostwalk Matrix is so good.

-There are definitely army builds to counter a Serpent Spam type army, but as another poster mentioned, how well will your army do against other types of armies?

-Finally, there were a lot of Eldar players who already owned several Wave Serpents from 5th edition and in a weird turn of events, this codex really made it easier for a lot of players to instantly play a competitive Eldar army.