I hate wave serpents

[Defenestratus]

And I'm the one thats using them!

They're way too good as a static firing platform. My eldar armies have become slow and plodding instead of lightning fast like they used to be. The wave serpent offensive firepower makes it really difficult to make it zoom up flanks, or do drive by Dire Avenger attacks or basically anything having to do with mobility.

No.

It sits in its own deployment zone, trying to stay away from close combat, while moving 6" and firing everything like it was a stupid IG tank. It hate it. I'm thinking of imposing a boycott on them and not using them since they're the internet unit-de-jour anyways but I really hate how they've turned my exciting, mobile armies into static gunlines.

/Rant over

Does anyone else find themselves doing this now?

[Archon Charybdis]

You can always just opt to not fire the shield, and stick to the turret and maybe shuricannon.

[laigenyee]

Behold the Eldar player. Whining over not having to think while playing a thinking army. I love the serpents. I shoot down flyers and AV12 and below but you do have a point. I no longer have to zoom about so much all thanks to the holo field. Back in 5th ed, it was flat out or die most of the time. You can always drop the tanks and take out the Harlequins and Wraithlord. :D

[pauljc]

So we've now got more choice as to how we use our Eldar miniatures?

That must be terrible.

[DrLove42]

I use mine as fast.

My army runs around 2 Serpents with 5 Sycthe Wraithgaurd each. First turn they're in the opponents deployment.

[cebalrai]

And I'm the one thats using them!

They're way too good as a static firing platform. My eldar armies have become slow and plodding instead of lightning fast like they used to be. The wave serpent offensive firepower makes it really difficult to make it zoom up flanks, or do drive by Dire Avenger attacks or basically anything having to do with mobility.

No.

It sits in its own deployment zone, trying to stay away from close combat, while moving 6" and firing everything like it was a stupid IG tank. It hate it. I'm thinking of imposing a boycott on them and not using them since they're the internet unit-de-jour anyways but I really hate how they've turned my exciting, mobile armies into static gunlines.

/Rant over

Does anyone else find themselves doing this now?


I lined up 5 Wave Serpents, Fire Prism, 2 Vypers, and 50 Guardians in a, 1850 tournament recently and crushed everyone I faced. The first match I was like, "ooh yeah I'm going to drop 50 Guardians off in people's faces then hose them with vehicles fire!" That worked *okay* but most of my Guardians died to Space Marine assaults and bolter fire... and the stuff that stayed back did the most damage. I still won by a pretty good margin (puppet mastering Land Raiders FTW) but it was competitive.

The second match I intended to do the same thing but found myself just sitting back and annihilating an Ork Green Tide rush with everything moved back to my baseline. The Guardians never really needed to disembark except for one unit.

The third match I said screw it and deployed with all five Guardian units disembarked in cover and shot Blood Angels off the map. It was pretty much over by turn two.

I'm actually on hiatus from running Wave Serpents at all right now, trying new things. In competitive tournaments, yes I'm likely to use them to stand and shoot a lot if I'm trying to get first place but otherwise I'll run them as transports because that's more fun. Part of me is wondering if they're going to FAQ Serpent Shields to call them "not a gun", as they're not subject to weapon destroyed results and therefore cannot be twin-linked by a scatter laser lock.

Most recently I tried a 70-Guardian (w/conceal-locks) with Avatar foot rush backed by 9x Vibrocannons, Rangers, counter-assaulting Scorpions, 6x Hawks, and a few other things. Let me tell you, three 20-man Guardian squads with dual platforms and Warlock is absolutely vicious.

[Anggul]

I generally fly them around for the first couple of turns picking things off with their guns, then bring them forward to unload the squads inside to do their jobs and carry on from there. I think that's pretty much what they should be doing.

I don't know why you would be moving them 6" rather than 12" though. The mobility is great.

[chicop76]

Hmm. I faced serpent heavy list 3x now and destroyed it with my Tau. However my Tau have more long range than a normal Tau army. Anyway the sit back and shoot didn't work since I did it better, turning of the shields one player learned is a bad mistake. I have enough anti-tank to glance death 3-4 wave serpents a turn within 36", and I can glance death an average of 2 aturn within 72".

However I did drop a rail gun, but I picked up some deep striking suits to help deal with crap like serpents. Anyway one player tried to do the get in my face tactic and it worked rather badly for him. Basically I stripped all cover and poped a huge portion of his tanks. Everyone else experance a lot of triple rapid fire shooting that erased the meat. Just want to point out suits are strength 5 and your rear armour is 10. If you assault that's fine since you will be overwatched to death.

The best tactic I seen so far is to pretty much play hit and run tactics. I think standrad troop armies with a lot of vehicles would struggle against the serpent spam, but armies with lots of armour and little or no vehicles with MCs really don't have a hard time with serpent spam, especially if they are used to dealing with barge spam.

[jgebi]

Can someone name one army that can't be a static gun line?

[Stone Edwards]

Can someone name one army that can't be a static gun line?

Like at all or a good one?

[DarkLink]

Grey Knights can't be a gunline (most Space Marine armies either can't, or aren't very good at it). Eldar... kinda can, but shouldn't. Orks can't. Tyranids can't.

[Archon Charybdis]

I don't know why you would be moving them 6" rather than 12" though. The mobility is great.

Because by moving them 6'', you can fire off your turret scatter laser, twin-linked shield, and twin-linked shuricannon for an average total of 7 TLed S6 shots, and 4-5 TLed S7 shots. It requires you to be within 24'', but it's kind of obscene.


Can someone name one army that can't be a static gun line?

If you mean armies with good ranged firepower that can force the opponent to come to then, you have IG and Tau for good ones, everything else is middling to poor. Dark Eldar are one that can't really do static gun line. They've got strong firepower but it's short to mid ranged, and they depend on their speed rather than range to engage targets on their terms.

[chicop76]

Grey Knights can't be a gunline (most Space Marine armies either can't, or aren't very good at it). Eldar... kinda can, but shouldn't. Orks can't. Tyranids can't.

Orcs can. I faced Orc gun lines before. Lots of strength 7/8 shooting. Boys are limited in range.

Tyranids can as well, but not that good at it. Although they can dish out a lot of strength 10 shooting and strength 8/6 as well.

The last nid codex could gunline really well.

[rpricew]

Orcs can. I faced Orc gun lines before. Lots of strength 7/8 shooting. Boys are limited in range.

Tyranids can as well, but not that good at it. Although they can dish out a lot of strength 10 shooting and strength 8/6 as well.

The last nid codex could gunline really well.
Only str 10 shooting is the Tyrannofex... and thats bad at best.

450 for 9 Hive Guards
520 for 2 Flyrants
795 for 3 Tyrannofex

That's:
18 Str 8 @ 24"
24 Str 6 @ 18"
6 Str 10 @ 48"
All AP4 or worse. That's not a very good gunline

[Popsical]

I have a sneaky feeling that thropes are st10.
And maybe ap1?
Juss sayin loik.

[gcsmith]

I have a sneaky feeling that thropes are st10.
And maybe ap1?
Juss sayin loik.

At 24" it's not static gun-line material

[chicop76]

You forgot about warriors that can shoot thee strength 5 shots.

Funny that when I played 2 strength 10 tyranofexes they poped tanks leftand right. Also they are great for giviving my other models cover saves.

[gcsmith]

You forgot about warriors that can shoot thee strength 5 shots.

Funny that when I played 2 strength 10 tyranofexes they poped tanks leftand right. Also they are great for giviving my other models cover saves.

They are definitely better in 6th than 5th. Tanks got easier to pop, and s10 was removed from the army which previously was the king of the S10 ap1 world.

[Dave Mcturk]

wot wud u call 45 lootas in three battlewaggons with four big shootaz each and mb a defence line as well... with a bit of bubble wrap and a kff... pretty gunline to me ... ive been banned from using it for club games...

[Dave Mcturk]

the GeenieWusses... cant really have play tested serpents properly imo... okay you use the shield gun you lose the defence... but 60" range ... seems excessive ... mb 36" ...
or a 'once' only option per game ?

i ran 6 the other day just for a laugh [not since 5th have i used wavz-mechdar] ... newwavedar was pretty unstoppable and although a few waves went down they forced target priority away from squishier stuff...

[Drunkencorgimaster]

I hate Wave Serpents too, but for an old fashioned reason: they are a nightmare to play AGAINST. Seriously Eldar players, tell me how to beat them. What is it you fear to see across the table from your endless waves of waves? I mostly play IG but dabble in Chaos Space Marines, nids, and vanilla marines. Any (non Forgeworld) suggestions would be appreciated.

[Tynskel]

autocannons. lots of them. Something IG can do pretty easily.

[Archon Charybdis]

Yeah, AV12 isn't exactly hard to glance to death. Spammed autocannons and missile launchers are still plenty threatening, but also a fast-moving assault unit with Krak grenades or a powerfist can make a joke out of back armor 10 these days. Unless you're sitting in the back with a minimum-sized Dire Avenger squad inside and firing the shield every turn, a Serpent is going to want to advance and probably keep the shield up to safely drop off it's cargo, which makes it reasonably vulnerable to assault.

I'm not going to sit here and say the Wave Serpent isn't a great tank, but a lot of the fear-mongering going on about it seems to engage in a hefty amount of Schroedinger's Cat-like analysis. Any assessment of it's survivability assumes that the shield is up (and that it was able to move for that 4+ holofield save), and any assessment of it's firepower assumes the shield is being fired. There is a tactical trade-off that has to be considered in how you use the shield, and while it's certainly powerful in having the versatility to do either, it can't do both at the same time.

[Tynskel]

Yeah, AV12 isn't exactly hard to glance to death. Spammed autocannons and missile launchers are still plenty threatening, but also a fast-moving assault unit with Krak grenades or a powerfist can make a joke out of back armor 10 these days. Unless you're sitting in the back with a minimum-sized Dire Avenger squad inside and firing the shield every turn, a Serpent is going to want to advance and probably keep the shield up to safely drop off it's cargo, which makes it reasonably vulnerable to assault.

I'm not going to sit here and say the Wave Serpent isn't a great tank, but a lot of the fear-mongering going on about it seems to engage in a hefty amount of Schroedinger's Cat-like analysis. Any assessment of it's survivability assumes that the shield is up (and that it was able to move for that 4+ holofield save), and any assessment of it's firepower assumes the shield is being fired. There is a tactical trade-off that has to be considered in how you use the shield, and while it's certainly powerful in having the versatility to do either, it can't do both at the same time.

Get off BoLS.
Voice of Reason is not allowed.

[Daemonette666]

Can someone name one army that can't be a static gun line?

Tyranids, Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Daemons, Necrons, Orks, Sisters of battle (which only have the Exorcist for long range fire power) Grey Knights (to a certain degree) and Dark Eldar.

Most of the Space marine Armies have access to Whirlwinds, Thunderfire Cannons, cheaply priced Devastator squads or similar - Long fangs, shooty Dreadnoughts, Landraiders, and Predators, Snipers, Cheap long range weapons options on their tactical squads. Imperial Guard, tau and Eldar have now been designed to accentuate their long range fire power.

From a CSM player, the only long ranged firepower of note that I can field comes from my heavy support choices (max 3) per primary detachment. So Havocs (very expensive), Oblierators - yes they have varied weapons options, but expensive, slow and purposeful (can not overwatch) and can only use their 48" lascannons every second turn. They have defilers, and both the Predator and Landraider. The tanks get shot up too quickly, cost more than they are worth based on the long range fire power they put out, and are better used if part of a mobile force. The defiler is very vulnerable to flanking or deep striking enemy with meltas (know this from experience). They are also expensive - especially to upgrade, and if you want to shoot with lascannons and other long range weapons options as well as the Ordnance weapon, they need to stay still. I find the other options available to the CSM codex have too short a range, or you can to get enough of them cheaply, and in the numbers required for a gun line.

Beside C:CSM is traditionally an assault based force, except for maybe the Iron Warriors, and they have removed their ability to take Basilisks as part of their force (without using allies).

I think if GW are going to design their armies, they should either design them either as a completely balanced force with equal ammount of options for decent close combat and long range shooting units, or the codexes should be biased towards one role - primarily Assault or defense.

This is where I think they went wrong with the C:CSM. They should have had options for dreadclaws, massed formations of cultists (up to 50 in a unit), infantry carried Icons or other items that reduced or countered Over watch fire, Items that give units in a certain range invul saves, or increase their cover saves to aid in their approach in assaulting the enemy. Any fie support units like the Obliterator, Havocs or Defiler could then be re-purposed to anti-armour and anti-flier roles, and they should have not dropped all the special rules units used to have like tank hunter, infiltrate, etc or made Noise marines into stand and shoot at short to medium range and sit on objectives role (yes make sonic blasters assault 2/heavy 3 again).

The same should be done for each codex, with the special Chaos legion codexes being released, or space marine founding chapter codexes getting their own specialty role or balanced role depending on the mini-codex. They could release special miniatures for these armies., Something iconic that reflects the role they are designed for. I think 40K would look a lot better, and even with the over complex rules used for 6th edition, the old time fans would be inspired to maintain and upgrade their beloved favourite armies. They would even be pushing their families and friends to get involved.

OMG I can rant when I get carried away. But you can see my point. Those armies designed for long range fire power seem to have the upper hand. Those new codexes that have less long range fire power, that rely on mobility, or assault - do not seem to get the equipment or rules need to survive against the new shooty armies out there. GW - please give the assault based armies a chance with rules, equipment, assault./ drop pods, fast assault transport vehicles, etc to allow them to survive to the close combat phase.

I can not field a decent static gunline with the current C:CSM options. I know many of the other gamers out there can same the same for their codexes. I also do not have the equipment needed to fill the role of assault force and have a chance of getting into close combat with enough units to have a chance of winning a game against Eldar, IG or Tau.

[Bigred]

Another point is that with the Eldar's now easy access to cover ignoring weapons - don't play that game.

The meta is already shifting away from static cheap units in cover. So take things that have more robust stats, can take a bit of fire and get in the Wave Serpent's grill.

They drop to assault like flies, and like Archon Charybdis said, AV:12 isn't exactly hard to get 3 hull points on. Assume they will never have their shield on past their first firing phase. It's like killing a Chimera...

I play with only 2-3 serpents, use them fairly aggressively mid-late game, and they get killed all the time.

[Anakzar]

At 24" it's not static gun-line material

The lance power is only 18 inches....

[Drunkencorgimaster]

[QUOTE=Archon Charybdis;334734

I'm not going to sit here and say the Wave Serpent isn't a great tank, but a lot of the fear-mongering going on about it seems to engage in a hefty amount of Schroedinger's Cat-like analysis. Any assessment of it's survivability assumes that the shield is up (and that it was able to move for that 4+ holofield save), and any assessment of it's firepower assumes the shield is being fired. There is a tactical trade-off that has to be considered in how you use the shield, and while it's certainly powerful in having the versatility to do either, it can't do both at the same time.[/QUOTE]

That is a really good point. All the analysis I've read have basic done just that: assumed the shield is up AND firing.

[magickbk]

One thing that skews most of the analysis I've read has been point values. As I see it, Serpent spam is difficult to counter at 1500 and below, and shouldn't be difficult to deal with the more points you go over 1500. Many gun line armies do best at larger point values where they get to open up all their big toys, whereas the mobile elite armies always are at a numbers disadvantage that doesn't really change as points increase. It also depends on your opponent, however. Certain armies are always going to have a tough time with it. Like Dark Eldar.

[Garradh]

Serpent-fear can be ridiculously helpful to an Eldar player. I've faced armies that didn't shoot my Serpents at all because "it won't matter" - I usually keep my shields up until they make their first shooting attack and I turn that lucky pen into a glance, then the opponent is demoralized about trying to kill them and I can fire my shield to my heart's content. I've faced armies that throw EVERYTHING at the Serpents because they were so terrified of all that AP 6 or - firepower.

Killing a Serpent is killing a tank. It might take 4-5 hits instead of 3. It might take one hit. It's easy to kill in HtH. I think the serpent-fear will fade in time.

[Cactus]

Can someone name one army that can't be a static gun line?

Deathwing.
Any drop pod list.
Daemons.

[chicop76]

Deathwing.
Any drop pod list.
Daemons.

Daemons can

Soul Grinder
SkullCannon
Pink Horrors
Tzeentch Herald

Daemons can be rather shooty with strength 5 shooting to strength 10. Heck if they wanted they can fire strength 6 and up.

[Demonus]

Deathwing.
Any drop pod list.
Daemons.

the first two aren't really armies, they are just lists in an army. doesn't mean you cant make a gunline with said army. Daemons Id agree with. Personally I don't see what is so bad about WS, they are pricey, and easily destroyed by enough armies. Ive used them, and Ive not used them. Neither time did it ridiculously influence the outcome of the battle.

[chicop76]

the first two aren't really armies, they are just lists in an army. doesn't mean you cant make a gunline with said army. Daemons Id agree with. Personally I don't see what is so bad about WS, they are pricey, and easily destroyed by enough armies. Ive used them, and Ive not used them. Neither time did it ridiculously influence the outcome of the battle.


You say that now, but when 4 squads are dishing out 32-192 strength 6 ap 4 shots you might reconcider. Also throw in re rolling succesful saves, re rolling hits, and ignoring cover as well. With 3 vehicles lobing strength 8 shots. Daemons are still very shooty as they where in last edition.

[Demonus]

who is dishing out 192 str 6 ap 4 rerollable cover ignoring shots?

[Ravingbantha]

you want to sit your Serpents still and shoot, then complain that's all they do, is just moronic. They are your tanks, if you cant come up with a bettter use for them, then dont. It's like hitting your head into a wall then complaining about the headache. Keep your taks on the move dont give your opponent a static target, take advantage of those holofields. Keep him/her guessing as to what your plan of attack is, if they just sit there, then it dosent take much imagination to overcome that.

[DarkLink]

who is dishing out 192 str 6 ap 4 rerollable cover ignoring shots?

Tzeentch Daemons can form a deathstar that gets like 16d6 shots. It's also about an 800pt unit that relies on a single psychic power.