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Howdy!
I had several games recently and all of them were featuring a friend of mine as an opponent. He runs a list of 4 Serpents, 2 of which carry Dire Avengers (one of these squads includes a Farseer) and the two others are loaded with 5-man Wraithguard squads with D-Scythes and Wraithcannons (with a Spiritseer in the latter). There are also 2x5 Warp Spiders units.
The pain is that I can't reliably take out his Serpents and D-Scythes. I tried 12 lootas, but they never drop a Serpent a turn. And I feel that there is no difference between full HP Serpent and the one with 2 HP stripped off - they just bring awful amount of dakka upon me.
D-Scythes are also a slayer of my army. They seem that can't be charged as ungodly volume of AP2 (and sometimes ID) goes from overwatch.
And small sacrificial units also don't work - they are annihilated by eldar's firepower before Wraithguards disembark.
So what are the ways of avoiding these losses? How to counter the units with orks?

Apparently, the best way is to get them in CC. It looks like you run Orks. No idea on if that will be a problem or not.

Depends on your list. Serp spam is a hardcounter to orkses mostly. Wagonspam works more or less fine if you manage to hide the sides which is super hard too. Bikerstar is somewhat fine if you avoid d-scithes as you have 3+ jink vs scatters and 4+ armor vs shield. followed up by a 5+ fnp.

As for footsloggers, it's another story. You have very little to hurt them at range and you lack speed to chase them. Stormboyz work fine in this case for an exchange of 1 serp. I use 8-10 stormboyz + pk/bp nob in almost every list and they are actually yet to disappoint me. With the 22-27 charge range on waaagh they're a solid board-controle unit. Stormboyz + kmk disallowing them go midboard, while boyz march towards the objectives and get VP. No other way cause you can't catch serpents with a footslogging army unless they come for you. So, you got to play carefully and force them to act aggressive. And you can only do it via board controle.

Solid los block helps too.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Apparently, the best way is to get them in CC. It looks like you run Orks. No idea on if that will be a problem or not.

Indeed, Serpents are very vulnerable in cc.
Orks have fast moving units.
The problem however is if your units hit the enemy front ranks in waves, the enemy will not have a hard time to deal with your Orks.

Playing refused flank -> enemy hits enemy front ranks in waves.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Apparently, the best way is to get them in CC. It looks like you run Orks. No idea on if that will be a problem or not.

Indeed, Serpents are very vulnerable in cc.
Orks have fast moving units.
The problem however is if your units hit the enemy front ranks in waves, the enemy will not have a hard time to deal with your Orks.

Playing refused flank -> enemy hits enemy front ranks in waves.

Yeah...so in other words, Orks probably won't be smacking a WS down.

Greentide is somewhat fine cause you basically lock the eldar in their deployment zone. So, if your tactical objectives are at least average and the game ends earlier than t7, you're gona be fine.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Apparently, the best way is to get them in CC. It looks like you run Orks. No idea on if that will be a problem or not.

Indeed, Serpents are very vulnerable in cc.
Orks have fast moving units.
The problem however is if your units hit the enemy front ranks in waves, the enemy will not have a hard time to deal with your Orks.

Playing refused flank -> enemy hits enemy front ranks in waves.

Yeah...so in other words, Orks probably won't be smacking a WS down.

Sixty Storm Boyz are nothing to laugh at.
However, in a recent RTT my Necrons took down such an army with the refused flank tactics.

Not orks but an IG blob with a couple of autocannons with ignore cover and tank hunter and prescience works well. You need a psyker and a Senior officer for that, but it drops WS pretty well.

Indeed, in CC they just pop, but it's hard to chase them even with trukkboys as the trukks are dead unless I have first turn. Boys also suffer large losses of their lasers and shields. Perhaps heavy armor can help to mitigate it.

Death company. They have ignore cover and reroll deepstrike - then are a pain to remove after.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Death company. They have ignore cover and reroll deepstrike - then are a pain to remove after.

I think you meant Legion of the Damned

(and indeed, I have absolutely no trouble at all with serpent spam when I'm running Vulkan lists).

Too bad Orks can't take looted sicaran battle tanks. Sicarans eat Waveserpents.

My buddy runs a couple fast units to get in on stuff like this. Nob bikers with a warboss and painboy.... also some deffkoptas with a warboss, Those two units are up in my grill before I can do much to them. after you pop those serpents, the infantry inside is too short range to be effective. you can bring them down with lootas and such.

This is why I have began moving away from serpents in my tournament lists. Units like invisible seekers with 2+ invuln ruin my serpents.

Other than that I know the 100 ork boys unit from the supplement is great against eldar because you'll have too many bodies to kill before you can hit the serpents... (barring hammer & anvil). Then Waaagh every turn after the first so they can't get away.

I thought about infiltrating a small squad of Kommandoz to redirect dakka or to take out a Serpent or two early. Any thoughts, won't they die fast? What's the tactica for them?

If there is good LOS blocking terrain, then that would help. It's very similar to the lictor tactics which have become prevalent since the 11th company GT.

With ork i find you have two main ways to play it :
- Green Waagh if you want to go footslogger
- multiple speedy small dangers, he wont get them all

For instance i ran against a list a bit like your friends at a tournament with my orks (at 2k) and nearly tabled him by having too many threats.
My list was :
- bikerstar with Warboss, Painboss and 13 bikers
- 2 units of 12 trukboys (with nob and PK)
- 2 units of 8 Tankbustas in a truk
- 1 unit of 3 meganobz in a truk
- 2 * 4 warbuggys with rocket
- 15 lootas
- 4 KMK and 4 traktor kanons

Almost everything went full speed first turn, and it was too many threats to get them all, even if you have only a boy or two after their shooting, as long as the nob with PK is there, its a dead serpent looking at you, same for bikers, the warbuggys came from the flanks, the tankbustas are very efficient.

Fast units with some ranged antitank support trying to force the things to jink. If you can keep the shields up, or force them to jink, then your trukks, bikes, stormboyz might actually reach them.

desperate ally with vindicare assassins and bring 3 at about 300 points. every turn you will kill 1 serpent. if he jinks hes rifle ignores it and regardless of if he chooses to use his shield it will simply be glanced to death and if he doesnt then it runs the risk of being penetrated.

IA ork boys biker spam is also a viable option as long as you load up on pk's. rushing into cc before they get to many shields off is exactly what you need drown him in attacks.


the only other solution would be something with str D in its arsenal as while its not guaranteed its likely enough that its going to cripple the serpent that its still worth taking.

Just deal with them by using ignores cover and keep in mind that your going to have to deplete 3 hp's for each serpent most of the time. For orks that's lootas, for tau that's markerlights, for eldar it's probably just serpants or fire dragons, for sm it's dev squads or missile launchers, and so on. Just remeber to expect a battle to take off all those hp's so pack lots of shots.