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You misunderstand me (and my 'pod reference). I suppose I should preface posts like that with 'I believe the Serpent is certainly OP'. The scope within which I was comparing it to the 'pod was where it was claimed that the serpent would be worth 145 points just for ensuring the contents got where they wanted to go. Meaning no shooting, Shield or otherwise. I brought up Pods to show that just getting the unit to where you want probably isn't worth 145 on its own.

I believe I went further to say that, at its current price, if it flatly lost the Sheild's shooting, the Serpent would probably be marginally overcosted. And brought up the Devilfish as a better comparison than a Land Raider or Rhino.

To sum it up: Serpents are probably worth 3x a Pod, possibly four - *if* the shield didn't shoot at all.

To go further, even immobile, 3xPods are more survivable than 1x Serpent. Serpent has notably better weaponry and mobility, but substantially worse survivablity and spread (there are 3 pods!). I'd give transport to the 3x Pods too, but there are pros and cons to both.

The 'DP is equal to a Serpent' is a strawman, given birth due to lack of clarity. Sorry 'bout that.

morgoth wrote:

Aren't you an Imperial Guard player ??

And what has that got to do with anything? Care to provide any data that shows that IG has been an OTT power army for all but but 1 edition?

morgoth wrote:

RAWRAIrobblerobble wrote:

Aside from Bikes, Fire Dragons and Scorpions, Eldar get 4+ armour on anyone other than the exarch, and 5+ only on Guardians, all of which are T3 (T4 for bikers bike). A S6 TFC blast will insta kill any of them, as will any S7 plasmas, kraks and lascannons.

Actually we have 3+ on Warp Spiders and Wraithblades/guards too.
But the only 2+ in all the codex is the vastly underpowered phoenix lords.

Eh, I won't argue with you there, the Phoenix Lords are pretty crappy. Still, Guardian Jetbikes should probably only have 4+ saves, there isn't any reason for them to get +2 to their save and +1T for riding a bike. That's a pretty minor quibble though imho.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

morgoth wrote:


Again, the Wave Serpent is not worth its cost if it doesn't fire the shield.

A transport that holds 12 that is practically guaranteed to deliver its payload by turn 2 is damn near priceless, without ever taking a shot.

If it had anything deadly that could assault /shoot out of it ?
If it was really guaranteed ?

Says WS aren't OP. Says yalls just jealous that WS are OP.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

What, T6, 2+ to wound, instant death flamers aren't good enough? Expensive I know, but they're not even the best things in the Codex to use a Wave Serpent for.

You cannot assault out of a Wave Serpent, you can disembark, then die.
If you wanted to disembark and shoot, it could be nice, except that you cannot disembark when moving more than 6", and cannot move after disembarking if you moved before, making the WS's mobility only good at getting in position the turn before it disembarks, and pray the enemy does not charge you / prevent you from moving away with the transport.

There are two units in the codex you might want to use a Wave Serpent to transport.
In that case, you're throwing away a 145 point transport by bringing it into assault range to deliver a 110 point one-shot melta unit or a 250 point one-shot WTF-flamer unit.
Depending on the day, it may be worth spending 255 to 395 points to deliver a single serious blow, if your opponent lets you.

If you want comparisons, losing the drop pod doesn't matter (it's almost free and provides an additional target for your opponent), and a Land Raider is not afraid of assault against most targets (except of course the emperor's finest or necrons, which have troops that can handle AV14. all the shenanigans).

As a pure transport or without the Serpent shield, the Wave Serpent would be extremely overcosted.

morgoth wrote:


You cannot assault out of a Wave Serpent, you can disembark, then die.
If you wanted to disembark and shoot, it could be nice, except that you cannot disembark when moving more than 6", and cannot move after disembarking if you moved before, making the WS's mobility only good at getting in position the turn before it disembarks, and pray the enemy does not charge you / prevent you from moving away with the transport.

So, turn 1: move 12", flat out another 18" for a total of 30" or fire turret weapon, preserve shield to as near as possible guarantee survival to turn 2

Turn 2: move 6", disembark within 6", for ~11" from starting point for a possible total of 41" of movement from starting position. Fire all weapons plus the contents of whatever was embarked.

Plus you've probably got another 3 units minimum doing exactly the same thing.

The enemy charging you isn't relevant, as you ensure you finish your movement at end of turn one outside of anything scary's threat range, because your threat range when moving and disembarking 6" is essentially equal to or greater the majority of assault range of many units.

At this point I'm going to say you've got absolutely no idea about playing 40K, I wouldn't even be surprised if you've never actual,y played a game and are just some sort of armchair gamer.

Movement/pivoting changed in 7th, and the only door is in the av10 rear. Still a lot of movement, but there are some limitations. (And the Serpent is quite long).

I do agree Jetbikes should be 4+, and probably needs 5 to be troops, but I don't think they're game-breakingly broken.

Sorry but...anyone whose played against Wave Spam already knowd its uber. No amout of "but but but" is going to fool anyone and no one who pays even remote attention to tournaments is going to fall for it either.

If someone wants to prove how "not powerful" they are: play without them. I do. My list has zero wave spam.

So youre not using Wave Spam becayse theyre NOT powerful. Sorry. The evidence is just enormous that they are uber. Dont sell out your integrity by suggesting otherwise.

(Once again, im *not* saying the Serpent isn't currently OP. Quite the opposite.)

As for Serpent positioning:
Outside Charge threat range is 18+ inches
Enemy can move away on his turn 6+ inches, for 24+ inches

From there, either:
Serpent moves forward 6", for 18"
Disembark, and move around chassis, for <6", minus chassis length, leaving you outside 18" by more than the chassis length

Or:
Serpent turns around, and moves its rear 6" closer than it started, for a gain of 6" minus chassis length, getting to 18"+ plus chassis length
Unit disembarks for 6", remaining 12"+ plus chassis length

Even if the unit can battle focus, it can't even overcome he chassis length, remaining outside 12".

The three main threats (Fragons, Wraithguard, and Scytheguard) all have 12" or less range.

So, while the Serpent is amazing in practice, looking at it in a void like this doesn't rally show it.

(Also, note that Scytheguard are s4 flamers. Autowound on 6 and ap2, but doesn't wound on 2s any more than Boltguns do.)



Automatically Appended Next Post:
(I heavily limit my Serpents because they're broken. Haven't fielded a second since last year, and usually only field one to get my Fragons into position. So same boat. I'm just trying to be more specific about what it can and can't do.)

You can always turn the Serpent at 90 degrees to the threat with the rear pointing at whichever flank poses the least threat, this circumvents the issue of the length of the hull and pivots.

Mitigates, but doesn't eliminate. Between this and Battle focus, Fragons might get non-melta range. Even with battle focus, Wraiths can't.

The better solution is to make backing off a worse idea, but we need a more complete understanding of the field. Or use them as a threat-in-being. Guardians can be effective that way.

Either way, the fact remains that my point remains broadly intact, irrespective of an inch or two of total movement. Especially when you consider that moving away from WS probably just means moving towards another.

Or, if the table conditions don't suit, one can always just stand off and shoot, which Serpents also do with extraordinary efficiency.

Or roll the dice ever so slightly and hope the durability holds out til turn three.

But it is, of course, the fact that all these options are viable that make Serpents what they are.

All that is because the Serpent can outshoot most gunlines.

In regarded to an inch or two not mattering, when its the 12th/13th inch and you've got a 9/10/12" range, it sure as hell matters. And that is exactly the inch or two we're talking about.

Serpents are broken and they can usually get their payload where they need to get to. But it has its limits (such as closing more than 12" of range for the guys inside when they disembark).

Still, all that isn't categorically better than a droppod when it comes to putting people where you want them. Some pros (can hide longer) and some cons (is threatened by charges and/or rear armor), but certainly not categorically better on that point alone.

Bharring wrote:
(Also, note that Scytheguard are s4 flamers. Autowound on 6 and ap2, but doesn't wound on 2s any more than Boltguns do.)

Ah sorry, I had forgotten their exact rules, I remember having to face them on a few occasions when the new Codex dropped. My opponent enjoyed loading up 2 Serpents with 5 D-scythe Wraithguard and I'd have to desperately try to eliminate one before they got near me... didn't work out so well at the time.

For all this talk about disembarking though, I have to remind people that Wave Serpents don't exactly need to disembark their squad to be effective. At the local tournament, the top list won 4/4 major victories without even disembarking his 5 Wave Serpents. Heck, the 2nd placed player won all their games too and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't disembark at all either.

Bharring wrote:
(Once again, im *not* saying the Serpent isn't currently OP. Quite the opposite.)

As for Serpent positioning:
Outside Charge threat range is 18+ inches
Enemy can move away on his turn 6+ inches, for 24+ inches

You mean against bad CC units that do not move 12 inches ?

Stuff like the supposed 2+ wounding flamers are one of the reasons I'm still engaged in this conversation. For all the awesome in the Eldar dex, there is a lot out there that people seem to believe but isn't true.

As for the disembark/don't disembark, most "competitive" Eldar builds (read: curbstompingly OP) have, at its core 4+ Davus, which is where you take a minimum squad of DAs just to allow you to take a Serpent. The DAs have no need to disembark - they might as well not exist. It is probably the purest of Serpent abuse.

Question - which is more brutal: 3x LRs with Termies, or 4x Serpents with Scytheguard? I'd think they'd be about the same league. Or would be, if the Serpent's shield weren't so OP.

(The spirit of this thread appears to be what in the Eldar dex is OP, not whether or not Eldar is OP right now. Most agree the Serpent's shooty shield is, and I'm trying to discuss what else might be.)

4 Land Raiders are really hard to kill. Unfortunately, they dont fire 14 HIGH STR shots some of which ignore cover on skimmers and which are 60 inch range.

OP have you found your answers? I'm curious as well with playing Eldar, since I haven't for a while but all I'm seeing here is pretty much 6 pages of "Wave Serpents are OP and you're TFG if you use one".

I have 1, normally use 3 Falcons because I use the Pulse Laser with a Scatter Laser (Laser Lock) to damage transports to stop them getting at any foot based things I have since my main opponents are Tau and Dark Eldar.

I stopped playing after going up against a Guard player with one of The Baneblade type tanks twice. 1st turn no save of any type everything insta-killed half army and then him turning it 90 and shooting dead everything else in the next turn just made me think F it. I've never won a single game with them in 4 years of playing them alone. With Allied Tau or Allied Dark Eldar fared better at 50% but most of the Eldar were dead.

Well I think I have found my answers.

Reducing the serpent shield to 12" or 18", or wholly removing its offensive ability, hell, even additionally nerfing its defensive ability to only work on a die roll (like 3+ or 4+) and/or raising its points cost by 15-25 points should fix that.

WKs should be fine as is - theyre pretty expensive.

Nobody asked for armywide shuriken quasi-rending, so if GW limits that to DA only, that'd also be fine by me.

And Swooping hawks might see their haywires removed, which would suck, but given what GW did to DE, no surprise.

Harlequins might be removed from the next codex and sold separately as add-on.

Hope they dont nerf anything else.

The only thing that would make you a real TFG apart from spamming WS is if you ally with DE.

I only use 1 WS and I've yet to fire the shield since the codex dropped. They aren't that OP just a good solid codex IMHO. I can beat them with other armies and have been beaten by other's too.

 Jancoran wrote:
4 Land Raiders are really hard to kill. Unfortunately, they dont fire 14 HIGH STR shots some of which ignore cover on skimmers and which are 60 inch range.

How about 4 Storm Gunships ? They fire really high strength low AP shots in decent volume with decent range. Plus they're hard to hit and to kill.

I don't know where you get your 14 High STR shots, but Eldar only get 3 shots at 24" (charge range, won't try), 4 shots at 36" (good) and 1+1d6 shots at 60" (pointless without the 36" before it).
In the most offensive case, you get 7 S6 shots without AP and 4.5 S7 shots without AP out of them, most of the time it's 4S6 and 4.5 S7.

Is it great ? sure. Better than two assault canons with rending ? no.

Against most targets, the ignores cover without AP is pointless, against light vehicles it's good and that's about it.

Compare that to the Storm Gunship of doom ? which can easily kill a land raider or a wave serpent, has AP and a very decent volume of shots plus the ability to throw pie plates ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sir Arun wrote:
The only thing that would make you a real TFG apart from spamming WS is if you ally with DE.

As long as you're fine with insulting people just based on the armies they want to play, sure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SkyD wrote:
OP have you found your answers? I'm curious as well with playing Eldar, since I haven't for a while but all I'm seeing here is pretty much 6 pages of "Wave Serpents are OP and you're TFG if you use one".

I have 1, normally use 3 Falcons because I use the Pulse Laser with a Scatter Laser (Laser Lock) to damage transports to stop them getting at any foot based things I have since my main opponents are Tau and Dark Eldar.

I stopped playing after going up against a Guard player with one of The Baneblade type tanks twice. 1st turn no save of any type everything insta-killed half army and then him turning it 90 and shooting dead everything else in the next turn just made me think F it. I've never won a single game with them in 4 years of playing them alone. With Allied Tau or Allied Dark Eldar fared better at 50% but most of the Eldar were dead.

And that's what happens when you try Soft Eldar against the other races, they just spam their iWin buttons in your face.

Try the good units in the codex for a change, if only to see the difference between a good and a bad unit.

But really, people complaining about Wave Serpents and bringing Baneblades or Imperial Knights is a bad joke.

As a GK player I can handle Imperial Knights quite easily, which is saying something when my only real high STR weapon is a Init 1 hammer or my DK going toe to toe with the IK. 2 knights and I start get a little uneasy, but I can still handle it, after all the knights are coming to YOU.

Wave Serpents dictate the battle with their range and ignore cover, which means you either need a fast delivery system or a even stronger longer range gunline.

With the Alpha strike GK have I can reasonably kill on average 1 maybe 2 Wave Serpents on the first turn. If I'm facing spam I got at least another 4 left to deal with. After that initial turn I start to fall off as the WS can fly over my units so I can't force an assault where I would be almost assuredly able to destroy all the vehicles. So I have to start chasing them with my Dreadknights while my troops slowly meander to the midfield. If I brought a Stormraven that becomes my backup plan to take out another one.

Thankfully it was only two games I had to play spam... the other guy took pity on me after this.

morgoth wrote:

I don't know where you get your 14 High STR shots, but Eldar only get 3 shots at 24" (charge range, won't try), 4 shots at 36" (good) and 1+1d6 shots at 60" (pointless without the 36" before it).
In the most offensive case, you get 7 S6 shots without AP and 4.5 S7 shots without AP out of them, most of the time it's 4S6 and 4.5 S7.

Is it great ? sure. Better than two assault canons with rending ? no.

Against most targets, the ignores cover without AP is pointless, against light vehicles it's good and that's about it.

Compare that to the Storm Gunship of doom ? which can easily kill a land raider or a wave serpent, has AP and a very decent volume of shots plus the ability to throw pie plates ?
.

So wait...by comparing it to something thats also OP, you seek to make your case?

Well... Thats certainly one way to look at it. Another is to recognize when two things can be broken. I think this is one of those times.

morgoth wrote:

Try the good units in the codex for a change, if only to see the difference between a good and a bad unit.

Like? Didn't matter if they were tanks or Titans, that wedding cake plate killed anything on a 2.

 krodarklorr wrote:


Not every army has a good way of dealing with everything out there, first off. As a Necron, my main way of dealing with vehicles is Gauss, which glances on 6s, but can't get through a 3+ cover say reliably. None of my stuff can, as I DON'T have anything with ignores cover, except a Sweeping attack from an Overlord, but I have to be decently close. By the time I'm close, your "not overpowered" transport has glanced most of my vehicles to death because I can't do anything about it.

So no, I don't have an "efficient" way to deal with it.

You've got scarabs that eat serpents for breakfast.

There's a bat-rep of scarab farm necron playing in a tournament and winning vs a regular eldar tournament min-max list.

morgoth wrote:
[

SkyD wrote:
OP have you found your answers? I'm curious as well with playing Eldar, since I haven't for a while but all I'm seeing here is pretty much 6 pages of "Wave Serpents are OP and you're TFG if you use one".

I have 1, normally use 3 Falcons because I use the Pulse Laser with a Scatter Laser (Laser Lock) to damage transports to stop them getting at any foot based things I have since my main opponents are Tau and Dark Eldar.

I stopped playing after going up against a Guard player with one of The Baneblade type tanks twice. 1st turn no save of any type everything insta-killed half army and then him turning it 90 and shooting dead everything else in the next turn just made me think F it. I've never won a single game with them in 4 years of playing them alone. With Allied Tau or Allied Dark Eldar fared better at 50% but most of the Eldar were dead.

And that's what happens when you try Soft Eldar against the other races, they just spam their iWin buttons in your face.

Try the good units in the codex for a change, if only to see the difference between a good and a bad unit.

But really, people complaining about Wave Serpents and bringing Baneblades or Imperial Knights is a bad joke.

Except SkyD is lying and never played vs a tank that is capable of 1 shotting half an Eldar Army with no saves of any kinds allowed. A Baneblade is a huge liability for an IG player and the only Baneblade that denies you any saves is the Shadowsword on a roll of 6. If you're going to argue that a large blast = half your army, then you're beyond ridiculous.

 koooaei wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:


Not every army has a good way of dealing with everything out there, first off. As a Necron, my main way of dealing with vehicles is Gauss, which glances on 6s, but can't get through a 3+ cover say reliably. None of my stuff can, as I DON'T have anything with ignores cover, except a Sweeping attack from an Overlord, but I have to be decently close. By the time I'm close, your "not overpowered" transport has glanced most of my vehicles to death because I can't do anything about it.

So no, I don't have an "efficient" way to deal with it.

You've got scarabs that eat serpents for breakfast.

There's a bat-rep of scarab farm necron playing in a tournament and winning vs a regular eldar tournament min-max list.

And that Eldar player is bad, because you can't convince anyone but Morgoth that anything will ever catch a 30" redeploying Wave Serpent in assault.

 Jancoran wrote:
So wait...by comparing it to something thats also OP, you seek to make your case?
Well... Thats certainly one way to look at it. Another is to recognize when two things can be broken. I think this is one of those times.

I'm sorry, did I miss the 50+ threads screaming StormGunship OP ?
Thought so.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:


Not every army has a good way of dealing with everything out there, first off. As a Necron, my main way of dealing with vehicles is Gauss, which glances on 6s, but can't get through a 3+ cover say reliably. None of my stuff can, as I DON'T have anything with ignores cover, except a Sweeping attack from an Overlord, but I have to be decently close. By the time I'm close, your "not overpowered" transport has glanced most of my vehicles to death because I can't do anything about it.

So no, I don't have an "efficient" way to deal with it.

You've got scarabs that eat serpents for breakfast.

There's a bat-rep of scarab farm necron playing in a tournament and winning vs a regular eldar tournament min-max list.

Ridiculous.

Not only is it extremely easy to win with AV13 Wall Necrons against Mechdar (barring objectives), scarabs get ID by Wave Serpents and are only a distraction for a turn or two at most.

The only thing that can reliably break AV13 Wall is CC, and a competitive Eldar list usually has two WK. Not quite enough to deal with a dozen AV13 vehicles.

This was of course not so visible before as various deathstars were the core of competitive builds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SkyD wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Try the good units in the codex for a change, if only to see the difference between a good and a bad unit.

Like? Didn't matter if they were tanks or Titans, that wedding cake plate killed anything on a 2.

Not Wave Serpents.
Not Titans.
Not Super Heavies.

When your opponent fields a Baneblade, bring a Lynx.

It's like Imperial Knights, somehow you should deal with D-strength and other Apocalypse stuff without bringing your own ? come on, it's not impossible but it's warped alright.

In regards to the Stormraven (I assume you mean Stormraven when you say "Storm Gunship"), it costs 200pts (230pts with Hurricane Bolters if you want more comparable dakka), takes up a Heavy Support slot and is a flyer. These are pretty big differences from a Wave Serpent. You complain about having to take a unit inside the Wave Serpent, but you're looking at upwards of 300pts (or even more) to load something inside a Stormraven, and they can get annihilated in 1 shot if the ship goes down. This is actually easier than taking down a Wave Serpent because dedicated AA systems, other flyers or massed/lucky/twin-linked AT fire can take it down if they need to. Still difficult, but they can definitely run into some hard counters.

Then there's the fact that they take Heavy Slots (for C:SM at least). This is pretty crucial because SM need those Heavy Slots for much cheaper AT or AA choices, so by spamming Stormravens they're weakening themselves elsewhere. Compare this to Wave Serpents which can actually be spammed with ease without worrying about gimping yourself elsewhere.

Also, you need to take their flyer status into account. Flyers' speed is balanced by their lack of maneuverability. They have to start off the board (meaning they may not arrive until Turn 4), and their available targets will be restricted by firing and movement arcs. Unless they enter hover mode, they may get 3 turns of shooting (or less) all game. And if they do enter hover mode, their survivability drops sharply.

So yes, Stormravens are dangerous, but they have their drawbacks (valuable FOC slots, expensive, limited impact time, have to choose either maneuverability or survivability).

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
In regards to the Stormraven (I assume you mean Stormraven when you say "Storm Gunship"), it costs 200pts (230pts with Hurricane Bolters if you want more comparable dakka), takes up a Heavy Support slot and is a flyer. These are pretty big differences from a Wave Serpent. You complain about having to take a unit inside the Wave Serpent, but you're looking at upwards of 300pts (or even more) to load something inside a Stormraven, and they can get annihilated in 1 shot if the ship goes down. This is actually easier than taking down a Wave Serpent because dedicated AA systems, other flyers or massed/lucky/twin-linked AT fire can take it down if they need to. Still difficult, but they can definitely run into some hard counters.

Then there's the fact that they take Heavy Slots (for C:SM at least). This is pretty crucial because SM need those Heavy Slots for much cheaper AT or AA choices, so by spamming Stormravens they're weakening themselves elsewhere. Compare this to Wave Serpents which can actually be spammed with ease without worrying about gimping yourself elsewhere.

Also, you need to take their flyer status into account. Flyers' speed is balanced by their lack of maneuverability. They have to start off the board (meaning they may not arrive until Turn 4), and their available targets will be restricted by firing and movement arcs. Unless they enter hover mode, they may get 3 turns of shooting (or less) all game. And if they do enter hover mode, their survivability drops sharply.

So yes, Stormravens are dangerous, but they have their drawbacks (valuable FOC slots, expensive, limited impact time, have to choose either maneuverability or survivability).

Once again, we come back to the real issue: FOC slots, i.e. the Wave Serpent is not OP but its ability to "break" the standard CAD schema is heavy when you consider the game only within CAD boundaries.
The Stormraven is clearly better than the Wave Serpent, there's no reason to put anything in it - there's no reason to put anything in a Wave Serpent either, but you have no choice.
AV12, Jink and Hard to Hit is not easier to kill than a Wave Serpent by any means, and numbers will completely overflow any specific anti-air unless your enemy is naturally anti-air (tesla comes to mind).

I'm not sure that I'd say that that is the "real" issue, but it's part of it. Lower either the survivability or the firepower of the Wave Serpent, and maybe even lower the points cost of the model somewhat if it makes a big enough difference, and then it's fine.

And like I said, Stormravens are pretty good, but FOC is not their only drawback. You can't forget the cost, movement limitations and that they're probably only going to be on the board for half the game if they don't want to get shot down.