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So I have been musing on the new incarnation of the wave serpent spam list and what the rule changes really mean. Before the core of my list was a mantle and jetbike farseer, 4 dire avenger w/ SL serpents, and 1-2 wraithknights. Perhaps a nightwing or warp spiders, etc. You get the gist though.

I realized couple points;
-My mantle jetbike farseer has gained and lost. He will probably bet better rolling all on runes of fortune as now I can move the farseer up, unleash whatever witchfires, blessing, maledicitons, etc. I can, and then turbo boost away to safety. The jetbike psykers are now considerably safer from return fire. However I will not have enough dice to reliably get prescience and guide off with the same sort of likelihood I used to. There is also the problem that a single farseer is very easy for 20+ WC armies to shut me out of my own psychic phase making my farseer a waste of points.
+I have decided that I will replace this farseer with a foor farseer and Iyanden Spiritseers. I will instead take telepathy for the shrouding and invisibility to tougher up my waveserpents and psychic shriek to deal with good armour save MC and units. I will take the pts partially from the extras and partially from the wraithknights. The alternative answer I came up with is a laughingtarch which mostly just go better.

-I am going to need more AV13+ killers in my lists as objective secured imperial knights and landraiders are a serious issue when trying to win an objective based game. 1 wraithknight will not cut it anymore as I can no longer just ignore the landraider if he fails to kill it and the wraithknight got worse at his job both due to the damage table and due to the relatively unreliable nature of getting guide off on it.
+At first I considered fire dragons, doubling down on the wraithkngihts, and vaul's wrath battery. However the dragons mean converting a serpent from an objective secured scoring machine to a normal scoring serpent, the wraithknights still lack a good source of guide unless I double down on WC and psykers in a big way, and the vaul's wrath are immobile in a mobile list and share the same want for a source of guide. I finally considered wraithguard and storm guardians. The wraithguard would fit very well for the purpose but are expensive and quickly remove the entire "spam" part of serpent spam. The storm guardians through provide me with 2 fusion guns for only a small increase in pts over the guardian or dire avenger squads in a normal serpent spam. I also no longer need the contents of the serpents to survive to score as the serpent itself is better at it. The storm guardians also give me some extra CC punch and ablative wounds so a spirit seer or farseer can jump out and psychic shriek a riptide into submission. They seem like a particularly good fit.


I also no longer think I need AA as much as I did before. The primary flyers that were serious threats from last edition were vendettas, heldrakes, and nightscythes. Vendettas became expensive for what they do. Heldrakes took a couple of nerfs and with the serpents as the real scorers I don't have to keep the infantry alive. That leaves nightscythes which serpents were already good against. The only flyer that could really threaten a serpent spam any more would IMO be a vulture as if it gets behind you it will wreck you.

Please let me know if you see in gaping holes in my logic.

Also what do the rest of you serpent spam players plan to do about GMC?

 ansacs wrote:
The alternative answer I came up with is a laughingtarch which mostly just go better.

I actually think he got a tad worse... now if he wants to get that awesome 2+ rerollable cover save he has to snapshoot his fusion gun :( But then again, if he gets real cover by getting behind something, I think he's still okay. Getting that 2+ rerollable cover though is going to cost something now which he definitely pays for.

 ansacs wrote:
-My mantle jetbike farseer has gained and lost. He will probably bet better rolling all on runes of fortune as now I can move the farseer up, unleash whatever witchfires, blessing, maledicitons, etc. I can, and then turbo boost away to safety. The jetbike psykers are now considerably safer from return fire. However I will not have enough dice to reliably get prescience and guide off with the same sort of likelihood I used to. There is also the problem that a single farseer is very easy for 20+ WC armies to shut me out of my own psychic phase making my farseer a waste of points.
+I have decided that I will replace this farseer with a foor farseer and Iyanden Spiritseers. I will instead take telepathy for the shrouding and invisibility to tougher up my waveserpents and psychic shriek to deal with good armour save MC and units. I will take the pts partially from the extras and partially from the wraithknights.

Somewhat the save way I use to run my farseer too in 6th. Now I plan on just keeping him in a jetbike and maybe getting another one. So 2x Jetbike Farseers. I'm not sure if it's going to be worth it or not... but all I know is that it feels like you either go "all in" in the psyker phase and get up to 20+ or don't even bother.... If you only have 1x Farseer and they have 20+ WCs then they can almost always throw everything at your 1x crucial spell and cancel it, unless you risk the perils.... this phase is hard to find balance in. IMHO your all in, or you barely bother.

 ansacs wrote:
-I am going to need more AV13+ killers in my lists as objective secured imperial knights and landraiders are a serious issue when trying to win an objective based game. 1 wraithknight will not cut it anymore as I can no longer just ignore the landraider if he fails to kill it and the wraithknight got worse at his job both due to the damage table and due to the relatively unreliable nature of getting guide off on it.
+At first I considered fire dragons, doubling down on the wraithkngihts, and vaul's wrath battery. However the dragons mean converting a serpent from an objective secured scoring machine to a normal scoring serpent, the wraithknights still lack a good source of guide unless I double down on WC and psykers in a big way, and the vaul's wrath are immobile in a mobile list and share the same want for a source of guide. I finally considered wraithguard and storm guardians. The wraithguard would fit very well for the purpose but are expensive and quickly remove the entire "spam" part of serpent spam. The storm guardians through provide me with 2 fusion guns for only a small increase in pts over the guardian or dire avenger squads in a normal serpent spam. I also no longer need the contents of the serpents to survive to score as the serpent itself is better at it. The storm guardians also give me some extra CC punch and ablative wounds so a spirit seer or farseer can jump out and psychic shriek a riptide into submission. They seem like a particularly good fit.

This is the big reason why I'm going to be running some Hornets and WarWalkers. 4x S8 AP2 shots per Hornet and 2x S8 AP2 Lance shots from each Walker outflanking. I think the Hornets will cover my AV13 and lower issues and AV13 & 14 will be covered by the Walkers + Wraightknight.


All this leads me to thinking about our Seercouncil... taking all those locks on jetbikes will up our Psychic phase game, shifting us from the "myeh lets hope it works" camp to the "all in" psyker camp. It also doubles as a way to get DE in the mix which in turn brings in the Venom which comes equipped with 3x Lances for a very reasonable price. It's a tad squishy but I think it could be a nice addition.

The storm guardians also give me some extra CC punch

They really don't. As with any Eldar unit, they're entirely hamstrung by Str3. They will only win combat against the likes of Guardsmen, anything tau, termigaunts, etc. Basically anything Guardian Defenders would beat anyway. If you're taking them, make sure it's solely for the Fusion guns. Personally, i'd take the BL with some defenders over that anyday.

I'd take a mantleseer over the mantletarch too. Farseer has much more utility, and the changes to witchfires buffer him well. Yeah, he may get shut down to psyker heavy armies, but we can shoot those off the table.

I second syypher on taking Hornets. Loads of good Str8 shooting, and with guide can double as anti air. Similar to the OP, i have a single Wraithknight, but plan to get a 2nd. Primarily to deal with Knights etc. I feel that with Hornets I can get away with 1-2 less serpents.

Hate to burst your bubble, but mine was just burst about the same thing so I feel entitled to do the same.
You cant cast blessings from inside transports. So ya the invisibility+shrouded wave serpents is out. Literally out as you have to be out to cast it.

No point really, I would rather have the farseer on bike out, shoot for shrouded and then have 2+ cover on everything when jinking and just avoid run around doing whatever all game.

It would be incredibly boring to play for/against, and IG blobs with lascannons would have a field day.

ninjafiredragon wrote:Hate to burst your bubble, but mine was just burst about the same thing so I feel entitled to do the same.
You cant cast blessings from inside transports. So ya the invisibility+shrouded wave serpents is out. Literally out as you have to be out to cast it.

You are correct. It used to be you could bless your unit inside or your ride. Now it says no psychic powers except witchfires. Ouch.

Belly wrote:They really don't. As with any Eldar unit, they're entirely hamstrung by Str3. They will only win combat against the likes of Guardsmen, anything tau, termigaunts, etc. Basically anything Guardian Defenders would beat anyway. If you're taking them, make sure it's solely for the Fusion guns. Personally, i'd take the BL with some defenders over that anyday.

I'd take a mantleseer over the mantletarch too. Farseer has much more utility, and the changes to witchfires buffer him well. Yeah, he may get shut down to psyker heavy armies, but we can shoot those off the table.

Like I said, a little extra CC ability. They literaly have 33% more CC ability that guardian defenders. With the psychers they are actually semi decent in CC depending entirely on the powers gotten. I would of course take them for the fusion guns as stated but you cannot say 33% more attacks don't exist.

The mantletarch has a big advantage in that he is useful even if the opponent has 20+ deny the witch dice. The farseer is shut out of his own psychic phase the second the opponent has more than ~20 dice to use. That is not hard for any CD or GK list to achieve and is very achievable even for some CWE, AM, and Inquisition builds.

syypher wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
The alternative answer I came up with is a laughingtarch which mostly just go better.

I actually think he got a tad worse... now if he wants to get that awesome 2+ rerollable cover save he has to snapshoot his fusion gun :( But then again, if he gets real cover by getting behind something, I think he's still okay. Getting that 2+ rerollable cover though is going to cost something now which he definitely pays for.

He also gets to jink in response to the first turn alpha strike. He used to be very easy to alpha strike for some armies. He also can still charge after he jinks so he becomes a bit more CC oriented if shot at. Realistically through he was never that tough to kill with shooting and required care with where you placed him so as to get LoS blocking. He is still somewhat squishy but now you should try to get some cover too.

syypher wrote:Somewhat the save way I use to run my farseer too in 6th. Now I plan on just keeping him in a jetbike and maybe getting another one. So 2x Jetbike Farseers. I'm not sure if it's going to be worth it or not... but all I know is that it feels like you either go "all in" in the psyker phase and get up to 20+ or don't even bother.... If you only have 1x Farseer and they have 20+ WCs then they can almost always throw everything at your 1x crucial spell and cancel it, unless you risk the perils.... this phase is hard to find balance in. IMHO your all in, or you barely bother.

There are 3 major strategies in psychic phase now; all in, not in, or 1 dice a bunch of powers (up to 4 with a farseer) and if they get off they get off. It seems like we can do any of the 3 fairly well as all our psykers are excellent value and have access to table with lots of 1 WC powers. The secret with minimum in is that the psyker needs to bring enough for their pts that only getting 1 power off a game is worthwhile. So the best example I have seen is coteaz who is a great value for 100 pts even without powers. The farseer might be able to do this with the stones and perhaps contribute enough with a spear or fearless to be worthwhile but I am not convinced. If you can get your WC to ~12 (average 12+3) then even 45 WC dice will have trouble shutting you out if you are smart about your WC use. Thus my trying to get some spiritseers into the list.

syypher wrote:This is the big reason why I'm going to be running some Hornets and WarWalkers. 4x S8 AP2 shots per Hornet and 2x S8 AP2 Lance shots from each Walker outflanking. I think the Hornets will cover my AV13 and lower issues and AV13 & 14 will be covered by the Walkers + Wraightknight.

I also run pulsar hornets sometimes. They are okay for AV13 though it is somewhat difficult that they take a considerable number of pts to do it properly and they will really struggle with the most important AV13 in the game, ie objective secured imperil knights. Bright lances warwalkers have actually taken a number of nerfs; they do less damage due to 7+ explodes and they lost easy, guaranteed guide access. This makes taking out high priority targets a real difficulty.

syypher wrote:All this leads me to thinking about our Seercouncil... taking all those locks on jetbikes will up our Psychic phase game, shifting us from the "myeh lets hope it works" camp to the "all in" psyker camp. It also doubles as a way to get DE in the mix which in turn brings in the Venom which comes equipped with 3x Lances for a very reasonable price. It's a tad squishy but I think it could be a nice addition.

Seercouncil stills has some huge advantages. They also have great access to S9 weapons en mass. I am not sure that they are going to a super strong build still though but they are one way to get enough dice to have a real splash in the psychic phase.

I have also been considering an MSU warlocks attached to guardian squads or windriders and farseers to distribute my psykers keeping them alive. Also if you are allowed multiple primary detachments a farseer star could be really awesome.

How does jink work now with the hornet special rule for shooting after flat out? I feel like there is a synergy there but I can't remember the hornets rules well enough.

I'm liking a stacked double force org maxed out with fast attack.Three hunters, eight spiders, two pair of hornets. Shuts down air forces hard and can freem elites with all the S8 Ap2. Karandras and a full squad of scorpions, then as many guardian bikes and prisms as you can afford. Not sure I would even bother with psychics. Would rather have more stuff that you know will go bang when you pull the trigger.

 ansacs wrote:
So I have been musing on the new incarnation of the wave serpent spam list and what the rule changes really mean. Before the core of my list was a mantle and jetbike farseer, 4 dire avenger w/ SL serpents, and 1-2 wraithknights. Perhaps a nightwing or warp spiders, etc. You get the gist though.

I realized couple points;
-My mantle jetbike farseer has gained and lost. He will probably bet better rolling all on runes of fortune as now I can move the farseer up, unleash whatever witchfires, blessing, maledicitons, etc. I can, and then turbo boost away to safety. The jetbike psykers are now considerably safer from return fire. However I will not have enough dice to reliably get prescience and guide off with the same sort of likelihood I used to. There is also the problem that a single farseer is very easy for 20+ WC armies to shut me out of my own psychic phase making my farseer a waste of points.
+I have decided that I will replace this farseer with a foor farseer and Iyanden Spiritseers. I will instead take telepathy for the shrouding and invisibility to tougher up my waveserpents and psychic shriek to deal with good armour save MC and units. I will take the pts partially from the extras and partially from the wraithknights. The alternative answer I came up with is a laughingtarch which mostly just go better.

-I am going to need more AV13+ killers in my lists as objective secured imperial knights and landraiders are a serious issue when trying to win an objective based game. 1 wraithknight will not cut it anymore as I can no longer just ignore the landraider if he fails to kill it and the wraithknight got worse at his job both due to the damage table and due to the relatively unreliable nature of getting guide off on it.
+At first I considered fire dragons, doubling down on the wraithkngihts, and vaul's wrath battery. However the dragons mean converting a serpent from an objective secured scoring machine to a normal scoring serpent, the wraithknights still lack a good source of guide unless I double down on WC and psykers in a big way, and the vaul's wrath are immobile in a mobile list and share the same want for a source of guide. I finally considered wraithguard and storm guardians. The wraithguard would fit very well for the purpose but are expensive and quickly remove the entire "spam" part of serpent spam. The storm guardians through provide me with 2 fusion guns for only a small increase in pts over the guardian or dire avenger squads in a normal serpent spam. I also no longer need the contents of the serpents to survive to score as the serpent itself is better at it. The storm guardians also give me some extra CC punch and ablative wounds so a spirit seer or farseer can jump out and psychic shriek a riptide into submission. They seem like a particularly good fit.


I also no longer think I need AA as much as I did before. The primary flyers that were serious threats from last edition were vendettas, heldrakes, and nightscythes. Vendettas became expensive for what they do. Heldrakes took a couple of nerfs and with the serpents as the real scorers I don't have to keep the infantry alive. That leaves nightscythes which serpents were already good against. The only flyer that could really threaten a serpent spam any more would IMO be a vulture as if it gets behind you it will wreck you.

Please let me know if you see in gaping holes in my logic.

Also what do the rest of you serpent spam players plan to do about GMC?

Sounds logical. One way to generate some extra WC, would be to put Warlocks in the Guardian units. They will also be an upgrade in effectiveness. I've always liked Telepathy. It was just that Div was better. But that no longer looks to be true.

My son runs Ulthwe, and He has always laughed at how much I try to sell him on Storm Guardians (so Fluffy!) maybe now he'll give them a look.

farseer, dump 11 dice into summoning something nasty, save one for ghost helm. win. Your opponent with 20 dice has to be in range, and has to roll 6's. You'll get it off.

After which, boost up closer to the enemy. Runes of warding with your same 11 dice, and deny one of his successful summons that he spent too many charges on with your 4+. Farseers are still amazing at the psy phase. You might not dominate, but you will hold your own without having to dedicate your entire army to generating warp charges. just some warlocks, a couple seers, maybe a spirit seer or two.

You could even spend a warlock or two on demonology trying to get sacrifice >

You should note though that the ghost helm only negates the wound from a perils and not the loosing a power or getting sucked into the warp. So unless you really need a small unit of comes the apocalypse, non objective secured, daemons then most of the conjuration powers are not going to benefit you.

However warlocks are amazing fodder for possession if you happen to get it. Getting a walock with possession however generates a bunch of wasted warlocks.

a farseer has a good chance of getting something decent. Like a herald on a chariot. the warlocks, well... you can only use one power for your warlock unit once anyway, so if you have 10 of them, a few of them might as well take a shot at it. And yep, it's a 1 in 6 shot of losing a power. Other than that, as long a you don't fail your leadership test, you're fine. also, if need be the warlock can summon something else (like a herald... on a chariot...) which has a shot at possession.

I don't have my book with me... can we ally with ourselves? I forgot if there is a limit or something to that now. How would we get more Force Org slots ourselves?

Combined arms detachment. We cannot ally but we can take multiple combined arms detachments.

The one thing that keeps me thinking about the WS's is that with how much more survivable ALL vehicles have gotten due to the new damage chart. I'm not sure where the WS stands when comparing the standard transports between armies.

WS with the "works" (Shuriken Cannon, Scatter Laser, and Holo Fields) is 145.

While a GK Psyback is 85pts with the "works" (Assault Cannon, Psybolt ammo)

The Psyback is much more spammable just because of it's lower point cost. So as far as army strength and firepower it can dish out... what are your guys thoughts on the WS vs other equivalent transports that can be spammed now in MSU oriented type armies?

Psybacks, and all units with Rhino stats still don't seem that amazing, precisely because of Wave Serpents/Anni Barges/Missilesides and other massed S6-7 shots. There were no changes to the HP system, so the primary reason people stopped taking rhino-chassis vehicles, death by massed glancing hits, still exists in the exact same form. Also, you'd probably take the cheaper HB psyback, the "make it a TL psycannon" upgrade is overpriced compared to what psycannons cost for infantry.

Objective Secured means that if you can't destroy the dedicated transport, then it will have whatever objective it's on. That heavily benefits Wave Serpents, precisely because they can move 1" to gain Holo-field benefits and then jink for 3+ cover while holding an objective, so they're actually really amazing scorers.

Wave Serpent MSU, at least in terms of vehicles, outclasses Marine MSU. Marines are better than Dire Avengers, and you'll likely see a lot more of them in combat squads, but their vehicles (aside from Dedicated Transport Land Raider skew) aren't what's going to be holding objectives well. It'll be the marines. Land Raider skew will hold few objectives well, but you can't bring too many Land Raiders without really compromising on your firepower.

Another Dedicated Transport that might give people trouble is the Ghost Ark, with AV13 (at least against initial fire) and Jink and less firepower opportunity cost when Jinking. This one could be tough to deal with. Devilfish with Disruption Pods are a similar possibility to Wave Serpents.

The advantage that Wave Serpents still have over these other Skimmer DTs is that the Wave Serpent is Fast, so it has significantly faster movement than basically any other transport in the game (30" with Flat Out). The Wave Serpent also still boasts Main Battle Tank firepower (although that now is a cost when jinking). Overall, Wave Serpents are still very strong for 7th MSU imo.

 Thariinye wrote:
The advantage that Wave Serpents still have over these other Skimmer DTs is that the Wave Serpent is Fast, so it has significantly faster movement than basically any other transport in the game (30" with Flat Out). The Wave Serpent also still boasts Main Battle Tank firepower (although that now is a cost when jinking). Overall, Wave Serpents are still very strong for 7th MSU imo.

Even further with Star Engines upgrade.

The waveserpent outclasses almost any other transport by a fair margin for it's cost.

First though the naked waveserpent is probably the most efficient overall configuration. The shucannon is not an efficient use of points due to it's range issues and it being the third weapon.

The serpent is really an objective secured gun boat which shoots from your board edge and jinks when shot at by significant firepower. The serpent has about 3 times the firepower of a psiback, is ~3 times as mobile, and against most weapons is ~3-6 times the durability. GK psibacks have other advantages (WC etc.) and SM rhinos have SM combat squads and possibly scout.

 ansacs wrote:
The waveserpent outclasses almost any other transport by a fair margin for it's cost.

First though the naked waveserpent is probably the most efficient overall configuration. The shucannon is not an efficient use of points due to it's range issues and it being the third weapon.

The serpent is really an objective secured gun boat which shoots from your board edge and jinks when shot at by significant firepower. The serpent has about 3 times the firepower of a psiback, is ~3 times as mobile, and against most weapons is ~3-6 times the durability. GK psibacks have other advantages (WC etc.) and SM rhinos have SM combat squads and possibly scout.

Well, I disagree here about the underslung shuricannon.

The way to play Serpents is to gradually approach the enemy instantly shooting him. Within 24'' range, the Serpents with 3 weapon systems (tl scatterlasers, shuricannon, and shield) reach their highest effectiveness. The enemy will crumble and when this happens, one can also concentrate on the objectives not earlier.

Do you guys still take holofields? Before we had a 4+ cover from jink. Now we get 3+ from jinking and moving. Do you keep it cheap or make the cover better?

emmagine wrote:
a farseer has a good chance of getting something decent. Like a herald on a chariot. the warlocks, well... you can only use one power for your warlock unit once anyway, so if you have 10 of them, a few of them might as well take a shot at it. And yep, it's a 1 in 6 shot of losing a power. Other than that, as long a you don't fail your leadership test, you're fine. also, if need be the warlock can summon something else (like a herald... on a chariot...) which has a shot at possession.

Anyone intentionally trying to get their Eldar models possessed should immediately lose the game and their Eldar army. I seriously think that there should be a literal rule in either the big rulebook or the Eldar Codex stating this outright with no ambiguity whatsoever.

Bran Dawri wrote:
Anyone intentionally trying to get their Eldar models possessed should immediately lose the game and their Eldar army. I seriously think that there should be a literal rule in either the big rulebook or the Eldar Codex stating this outright with no ambiguity whatsoever.

Screw you, buddy.

My Eldar Farseers are themed after the shugenja in L5R, and therefore they are perfectly capable of safe, sane summoning of elementals. Totally not daemons. If I roll the Possession power, the Farseer is not destroyed, he is simply imbued with the force of a mighty elemental Phoenix which boosts his psychic potential to that beyond the ken of mere monkeigh. It is definitely not a Lord of Change cleverly disguising itself to seduce the Farseer.

(Note: all joking side, my Craftworld's fluff definitely supports the idea of elemental summonings that aren't daemonic, and I'm going to be building an awesome-looking Farseer's "Phoenix Form" at some point. So don't tell me that I should give up my army just because I want to use the rules in a creative manner to represent the way my army works. )

Yea, or there was a guy running a nurgle infested craft world. Totally made sense for his army to be able to summon.

If they put in the work to make it make sense I am 100% behind it. If they dont I will trash talk more than normal during the game but still have no problem with them doing it outside of that.

 Magc8Ball wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:
Anyone intentionally trying to get their Eldar models possessed should immediately lose the game and their Eldar army. I seriously think that there should be a literal rule in either the big rulebook or the Eldar Codex stating this outright with no ambiguity whatsoever.

Screw you, buddy.

My Eldar Farseers are themed after the shugenja in L5R, and therefore they are perfectly capable of safe, sane summoning of elementals. Totally not daemons. If I roll the Possession power, the Farseer is not destroyed, he is simply imbued with the force of a mighty elemental Phoenix which boosts his psychic potential to that beyond the ken of mere monkeigh. It is definitely not a Lord of Change cleverly disguising itself to seduce the Farseer.

(Note: all joking side, my Craftworld's fluff definitely supports the idea of elemental summonings that aren't daemonic, and I'm going to be building an awesome-looking Farseer's "Phoenix Form" at some point. So don't tell me that I should give up my army just because I want to use the rules in a creative manner to represent the way my army works. )

That... would actually be pretty cool. I was referring to people doing it just for a tactical advantage in the game (and I wasn't being entirely serious, just a little bit.
Like Leth said, if thought and effort has gone into it, I still wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't immediately declare a moral victory :-p.

 syypher wrote:
Do you guys still take holofields? Before we had a 4+ cover from jink. Now we get 3+ from jinking and moving. Do you keep it cheap or make the cover better?

I do. I have begun to take GWM as well when the points allow. Parking a Serpent inside a ruin for a 3+ save WITHOUT jinking is worth the combine 25 points IMO.

Holofields by themselves are great too, 3+ Jink and 4+ non-jink cover with ANY intervening models is always worth it.

For me, the value of Serpent upgrades are as follows:
Holofields > Shuriken Cannon > Ghostwalk Matrix > Star Engines > Vectored Engines > Spirit Stones > Crystal Targeting Matrix.

I am really liking the Shuriken Cannon a lot more in 7th as my Serpents are now focused on capturing objectives and are more likely to be within 24". GWM seem to be more useful, especially when playing the missions, as there is a good chance of some objectives ending up in terrain. Star engines might actually see some play in certain builds. The extra flat out distance could be helpful for snatching far flung objectives.