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Hey all,

So played an Eldar player who had 3 Alaitoc wave serpents with spirit stones, crystal targeting matrix and Twin Bright Lance

I had a Tau Hammerhead list

How do you deal with this kind of unit? Usually I ignore wave serpents, but these were punishing with their twin bright lances against my tanks. Furthermore with the minus to hit, and the serpent shield and the spirit stones, they become almost unkillable

Whats your tactics for this?

For a start, he's overdoing it on the amount of upgrades on his serpents.

As someone who plays 3 serpents on the regular now, concentrated firepower to bracket them is a big deal to affect their mobility and their ability to shoot.

I don't know enough about Tau to help you with your list specifically, but that's the general rule for killing them.

You play Tau? How about spam that Forge World Ripetide Suit thing, iirc its auto hitting plasma flamer is more than 9" range, so you might be able to deep strike and kill it. After that, rely on your own 3++ and those Shield Drones to stay alive.

That -1 to damage is a real party pooper. You might need some different weapon profiles in your list to deal with them - high-ish strength, -1 or so, 1 damage weapons do a nice job on them.

Do you use Longstrike? Hitting on 3s with Hammerheads i'snt that bad. Same goes for CIB Commanders

Fusion blasters and long range weapons with D6 damage work really well. Spamming them with 1 damage weapons also works really well too.

The most important thing is focusing them down one at a time like tyranid horde mentioned

Also keep in mind that Wave Serpents are the only vehicles with those fancy shields. This means that any Fire Prisms or Falcons in the list do not have a similar damage reduction protection.

Keep track of the defensive stats on the various Eldar tanks, and pick your targets accordingly. For instance, if you have low-mid damage anti tank weapons (2 or d3), shoot where possible at big targets without the shields. Also be aware that many Eldar Players will put Vectored Engines on their Serpents. This will allow them to get another -1 to hit by advancing... and they can still shoot with Shuriken Cannons (although less accurately). So keep that in mind.

Try to bait out the Lightning Fast Reactions Stratagem before committing your biggest anti tank assets. For instance, if you have a Cold Star Commander with 4x Fusion Guns... try to get the Eldar player to declare LFR before you commit those Fusion guns, or fire the Cold Star last, to make the Eldar Player unwilling to deploy his LFR. The one thing you need to avoid is shooting at a Wave Serpent with -3 to hit. (Alaitoc, LFR, Vectored Engines), when you could instead be committing those ranged anti tank assets into other more vulnerable tanks.

For Tau Specifically, really focus your Marker Lights and try to get as many hits on a target you want to bring down. Also keep in mind that Command Suits with multiple Fusion Guns are an exceptional counter to Eldar Grav Tanks- since they will be using their speed to move within 12 inches and negate that Alaitoc protection. Grav Tanks also lose most of their additional protection while in close combat... but Tau aren't really well suited to that.

Massed fire warriors?

Gitdakka wrote:
Massed fire warriors?

Hitting on 5s wounding on 5s aint gonna do gak to a Serpent.

But twin brightlances are gonna do less gak to Fire Warriors.

Remember that CTM only impacts shooting at the *closest* target. If he's got a bunch of BL Serpents, make sure you have some FW or Kroot in front of your big stuff.

Also, Alaitoc only impacts firing outside 12".

BL Serpents sound like the perfect Hammerhead counter. A very bad matchup for you.

Serpents are a bad match up for a lot of stuff... too much stuff, imo.

Bharring wrote:
But twin brightlances are gonna do less gak to Fire Warriors.

Remember that CTM only impacts shooting at the *closest* target. If he's got a bunch of BL Serpents, make sure you have some FW or Kroot in front of your big stuff.

The lances are going into tanks, not a mob of fire warriors. Craftworlds have streetsweepers to do the latter.

That's why, in this particular case, he should ensure there's something else in between: because, if they move, they either fire those BL at those closer models (probably Fire Warriors), or they shoot them at the backfield Hammerheads at a -1.

Does that really "deal" with it?

Nope. Serpent is still gonna drop some serious hurt on the Tau armor.

It's not the answer, you still need to find one. But now your HammerHeads are taking only 75% of the punishment they were going to take.

A -1-to-hit penalty is still nice.

I'm no tau expert but ghostkeels with fusion collider and two fusion blasters and maybe a velocity tracker look good.

Even though I am not a fan of the unit - the colstar commander with 4 fusionblaster murders wave serapnts.

He flys right up - hits on 2's or 3's if he advanced to get within 12" then he wounds on 3's - 0 save - and perhaps even 2d6 pick the highest for damage

Another good choice is the skyray. Ignores the -1 to hit with velocity tracker then can launch 6 missles with a good chance to destroy a serpant.

Thanks all, some good ideas. It is quite a punishing counter to Hammerheads

I mean, the ideal gun to hit a wave serpent with is a D6 damage, ap-3 or -4 weapon

So, lascannon equivalents. Railguns should do a number on them. But in my limited knowledge, you'll want markerlight support to help secure the hits.

It's weak against mortal wounds and close combat.