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Ok so my brother and nearly everyone at my club are having trouble beating my brothers army list and his tactics.

This is purely for me I run a solid khorne army with 2 bezerker units in two land raiders one with khan and a hell drake for support.

My brother tends to run a wraith knight supported by either a super upgraded solitaire or lots of wave serpents with dire avengers.
His tactics are pretty much distract me with the wraith knight than pull out dire avengers and blast me. He then swoops in with a crimson hunter and takes out my hell drake at range.

Any tips?

thanks in advance.

Wave serpents are weak at rear armour, not sure which side vector strike hits but if it's whatever side it's facing then try to get the rear. Khan can smash the wraithknight in combat if he doesn't have the shield and especially if you have some models to allocate hit backs to. Don't equip melta bombs if chasing after the knights, they are str 8 as are your krak grenades on basic troops. How many wave serpents does he run. You seem to be running a fluffy list against a mainly competitive list you can't expect to beat it all the time. The solitaire if upgraded with banshee mask and lance isn't actually that good if assaulted by say... Kharn. Maybe consider taking out troops first and maybe not going after the wraithknight and getting "distracted" unless an opportunity arises for you assault some marines and kharne into him.
Anyway good luck, hope I helped

I'm pretty sure Vector strike hits the sides, which has a AV of 12.
Krak grenades are normally S6, but may be different for Chaos.
Crimson Hunters are AV10/10/10, so bolters and other S4 can kill them.

As an eldar player...wraithknights and serpents both die to missile and/or lascannon spam...which is currently uncommon.

It forces us to either not shoot the shield or to shoot it and die to penetrating hits. Serpents are only excellent right now because of every single army trying to maximize S5-S7.

As far as the Hunter goes...get yourself a Quad Gun...and put it in the middle of your deployment. The Hunter will probably stay out of its range when it comes in...but its about target denial...not killing.

It takes 18 bs4 non twinlinked krak missiles to glance out a serp shield out in the open with holofields. 2/3 to hit x 1/2 to glance x 1/2 to pass 4+ cover save. Gives 0.16recurring. 3 (hps) divided by 0.16 recurring gives 18.
It takes 13.5 bs4 non twinlinked lascannon shots to glance out a serpent.
Now when you consider how many points you must spend to include 18 missile launchers or 14 lascannons, and then consider that a holofield serp comes to 145pts, we can catagorically say that a missile or lascannon spam IS NOT effective against a serpent!

Poly Ranger wrote:
It takes 18 bs4 non twinlinked krak missiles to glance out a serp shield out in the open with holofields. 2/3 to hit x 1/2 to glance x 1/2 to pass 4+ cover save. Gives 0.16recurring. 3 (hps) divided by 0.16 recurring gives 18.
It takes 13.5 bs4 non twinlinked lascannon shots to glance out a serpent.
Now when you consider how many points you must spend to include 18 missile launchers or 14 lascannons, and then consider that a holofield serp comes to 145pts, we can catagorically say that a missile or lascannon spam IS NOT effective against a serpent!

I wasn't saying you only take missiles...

Please, you need a mix of ranged weapons. Which is why Guard does decent against Eldar, Autocannons at Serpents with a shield up and lascannons at serpents with shields down.

You're not trying to glance with S8+, you're trying to catch Eldar with their pants down...or make sure they keep them up. (I'm sure we can all agree that Serpents are much less scary when not shooting their shields)

But he plays csm. Any auto cannon or lascannon is massively points inefficient when shooting at a serp.
Plus it'll take 27 bs4 autocannon shots to glance out a serp shield. That's a horrendous amount of points cost in firepower for a 145pt tank. We are talking 3 havoc squads all armed with autocannons to get remotely near that.
It might be the best csm can do against serp spams. But it is still a horribly unfair fight.

You keep looking at singular equations...I don't think you're getting that the mix of these weapons is where the strength is.

Termicide (3 Terminators deep striking with combi-meltas) still works... if you get the drop on a wave serpents rear or on one which fired it's shield the previous turn. Not to mention, Wave Serpents aren't awesome at removing 2+ armor saves.

 ductvader wrote:
You keep looking at singular equations...I don't think you're getting that the mix of these weapons is where the strength is.

I don't think so. You said that you want to glance out serpents who have their shields up and that auto cannons are preferrable to do it, and thats precisely the calculation he made. It's tough to put enough las cannons on the board (as CSM especially) to as you put it "catch a serpent with its pants down", not to mention the autocannons that are supposed to be hanging around too. Let's face it, they're tough sons of guns to crack. It's not like you can really alpha strike Serpents with a gun line either. CSM player goes first and fires every las cannon/ auto cannon at the Serpents who are benefitting from the shields. Eldar player responds in kind by using the shield offensively to remove any las cannons.

And no that's definitely not the best way to do it against serpents. Best options are deep striking oblits/termies for rear armor, or fast assault threats. MoN Spawn accompanied by a Lord are tough, fast, killy and will soak up a lot of fire. Consider allying in Khorne Hounds from daemons. They fill the same role (fast tough assault threat) and are murder against basic infantry and transports. 2W, 3Att and S5 on the charge for 16pts? Yes, please.

As an Eldar player, consider ignoring the wraithknight unless you can assault it.

As for the wave serpents, Come at them from different directions. Outflank. Deep strike. Force him to turn and face you, and in doing so turn away from another equal threat. Give him more target to shoot at then he has guns.

deathmagiks wrote:
As an Eldar player, consider ignoring the wraithknight unless you can assault it.

As for the wave serpents, Come at them from different directions. Outflank. Deep strike. Force him to turn and face you, and in doing so turn away from another equal threat. Give him more target to shoot at then he has guns.

That's really, really hard. At least for meqs. Especially when you are guys are pumping out 50+ wounds a turn. I have seen reserves completely back fire against Eldar, as the marine player was just serving himself is easy to handle chunks to the Eldar player. Piece meal = fail.

Almost positive the Kharnzerker group could bring down the Wraithknight it two turns. By using the zerkers as a meatshield for Kharn.

The rest of the list sounds like Serpent Spam. Good luck.

Well thanks a lot to all you and I will be sure to own him next time.

Take this all with a grain of salt... I do play Eldar, and Chaos Marines, if that means anything.

The biggest tip I can give is pressure the Eldar Player. It "only" takes 3 hull points to down a serpent, glancing or penetrating... so volume of fire means more than the defensive capabilities of the shield. Also, I know when I have the chance to back up into a far corner and fire away with my serpents I will, so if you can crowd the table space... don't let him post up, and when you do get aggressive, remember he can move 30" a turn, so make sure you have good board control.

Early game is key. I have been running a triple Wraithknight/triple Wave Serpent list with some warp spiders and jetbikes in support. I have been doing extremely well, but when a savvy player can keep my firing lanes to a minimum and can get close, things change dramatically for me. If my opponent can down one or two of my serpents early, then the game changes drastically for me, and I'm in recovery mode.

Wraithknights are bullies, and bullies are good at board control, so this isn't going to be easy, but add a couple of drop in targets (oblits, termies, 5 Raptors with 2 melta), and things should come around for you.

Also, if you ally crimson slaughter you can get divination, and I have had some good results with a prescienced Forgefiend. It's not an amazing combo, but with it's firepower and decent range you could be a huge issue for the serpents.

hope this helps!

A couple of reminders:

Vector Strikes ignore cover. This means that Jink does nothing for you. Also the Shield only protects against the front and side arc, meaning attacks from the rear cannot be downgraded.
The Solitaire build relies heavily on it's re-rollable cover save, anything that ignores cover makes killing the Solitaire easier.
The Wraithknight is a distraction, while it is killy, if you can gt a large squad of zombies (or Fearless cultists) there (such as by Outflanking) you can tie it up for quite a few rounds. 4 attacks per turn, assuming the full 35 cultists/zombies get there, you are looking at tying it up for a good 4.5 rounds.

Another personal note as an Eldar player...my serpent's back end will be against wall and table edges until your pods or deepstrikers that can hurt it are all in.

Throw some ranged s6-s7 down and hide a few of those s8+ weapons in your squads.

Foremost tactic, knock him upside the head for playing such an overpowered list.

Realistically, you get rid of that Knight and your Land Raiders are unstoppable. So you just have to remove 6 T: 8 wounds from the field. (didn't say this wouldn't be uphill)

Melta still tears up Serpents, and their shield doesn't work on rear armor. So... How much outflanking and Deep Striking ya got? What I see from marines I fight is drop pod with 2 or more meltaguns. Guarantees a dead serpent, and the rest shell up on the shield.

An alternate take: Noise Marine commander with that S: 8 AP: 3 blast with IC. I know it's not Khorne, but I know it works.

 ductvader wrote:
Please, you need a mix of ranged weapons. Which is why Guard does decent against Eldar, Autocannons at Serpents with a shield up and lascannons at serpents with shields down.

You're not trying to glance with S8+, you're trying to catch Eldar with their pants down...or make sure they keep them up. (I'm sure we can all agree that Serpents are much less scary when not shooting their shields)

You're high off your ass if you think Guard is a good counter to Eldar. As an Eldar played, the only loss i've had to guard since the new Codex was to Guard/Eldar Allies.

I think playing a Zerker-Chaos list you're hard against the Wall against a competitive Eldar army such as you described. Fast, distraction units such as spawn/nurgle bikers will cause some problems. You should be hoping for first turn, and Flat-out-ing those Land Raiders to get your zerkers into charge range for turn 2. You can largely ignore the crimson hunter. Once your Raiders go down (and they will between 1-2 rounds of shooting from the Knight/Hunter), it's not going to have much in the way of useful targets.

Aside from that, he's your brother, tell him to stop playing a competitive list in a social setting!

Well I will tell him to lower down the over power force and try all the tips against him.

Swap armies with him for once. And feel amazing ballance once again.

That's an interesting game experience. When an eldar player agreed to swap with my orkses, he gave up turn 2 and stopped being an arrogant ass for some time The game's not entirely about winning and listbuilding. It's just not fun and interesting to play vs such a list as wave serpents + wraithknights.

Anywayz, if you face wave serpents with chaos, first take note how much firepower you have. If you got just havoks, a few oblits and maypbe some guns here and there - it's gona take 2-3 turns to kill one. If you have fast mellee guyz - don't even bother shooting serpents than. Cause this will be shots wasted. Count how many shots you statistically need to down one damn serpent. So, if there are better targets - shoot them. If not - than you got nothing else to do but hope for the dice gods to be good to you and bad to eldar. Things happep.

Melta drop - be it termies or raptors, still have to pass through 4+ cover at worst. 3 meltas, 2 hits, 1 goes through - sounds not bad, but you got to be lucky with a deepstrike and not scatter too much - otherwise, if you scatter too much that you won't be able to shoot back armor - wasted drop. Termies will get killed with pseu-do armywide rending, raptors with same rending and rof. But realistically, melta-drop, vectorstrikes and mellee are your only weapons vs waveserpents.

I think the best option for you is to get a biker sorc with a force axe, sigil, spell familliar and ML3 and join him with 5 nurglespawns. Biker sorc + nurgle spawns are actually an awesome unit overall. Cause depending on your opponent's build you can get such things like:
fnp+relentless+iwnd - one of the best things to use on your spawns to protect them from serpentshields
invisibility - super-awesome if you have a landraider with mellee guyz - protecting from bright lances with better cover will help
puppet mastery - kill the damn serpent with a wraithknight's s10 ap1
warp speed and/or iron arm - make your sorc a wraithknight hunter and character-killer
and other useful things.

Note that bikersorc + spawns are a great unit vs any opponent.

Well statistics state some approx 18 krak,13 las cannons w holo-fields.

You don't win vs Eldar... You survive barely...

Muhahahaha.

(Seriously... I've tried everything in beating Eldar since Rogue Trader. Never beaten them... Not even once.)

Puscifer wrote:
You don't win vs Eldar... You survive barely...

Muhahahaha.

(Seriously... I've tried everything in beating Eldar since Rogue Trader. Never beaten them... Not even once.)

I have had the exact same experience I get close to doing damage and the next thing you go where is my army?

They just cause so much damage.....

so i think the consesus here and my unprofessional opinion is to kill the serpents... every serpent downed is a significant reduction of fire power

broo wrote:
so i think the consesus here and my unprofessional opinion is to kill the serpents... every serpent downed is a significant reduction of fire power

Yeah, I agree. If you can.

My biggest opposition comes from a Tau player...he always guns for my Falcon first because otherwise it and my Hunter tend to murderface his broadsides.

Legion of the damned with a melta and a multi melta. Deep strike into melta range on wave serpent rear armor and watch it go pop.

dadakkaest wrote:
Legion of the damned with a melta and a multi melta. Deep strike into melta range on wave serpent rear armor and watch it go pop.

That's fun! And avoids some of the bladestorm retaliation.