I Need Help Beating Wave Serpent Spam with new dex :(

After quantum analyzing the dex 3 times, i still cant beat wave serpents. The lack of Invl saves really hurted badly. vehicles easily went down to serpents. Ive tried scourges with HB's, Reavers, Hellions, venom spam, raider spam, Beast packs,etc... Nothing. I need a little help with this, id appreciate it

Thanks

Well, I can't even begin to imagine how Hellions would help much, and Beasts are sort of a different thing now. I'm surprised Scourges don't help.

Now, Serpent Spam is probably one of the top builds right now, so it's always going to be an uphill climb against them, that said, you need to think about the tools we have to overpower them and how. Haywire blasters, lances, and blasters are our best ranged tools, and definitely getting them into assault and ripping them up is also viable presuming you can get up to them while surviving the punishing firepower they can dish out.

Against Serpent Spam I personally am not sure the loss of the Flicker on Raiders/Ravagers/Fliers makes that big of a difference, as it only really mattered against the sheild, and the sheild tended to gut us anyway - not to mention the rest of their shooting.

What I find works best is target over-saturation. Pretty much anything a Wave Serpent looks at in our dex is dead meat under the type of firepower they can bring to bear, so you have to be expecting to lose that many units more or less. The goal is to manage to have enough units to survive that sort of abuse while still being able to pop holes in Serpents.

I find a lot of Raiders helps because they have long range lances, making them better than blasters. Haywire blasters also have this range advantage. Ravagers do as well, and yes, they're more expensive now, but they still do something we can't get anywhere else in the codex so they still have a viable purpose in the army. After that, having some Warriors/Trueborn with blasters helps, they'll bring their fury more on Round 2, but can sometimes get in on Round 1 (even if only snap firing or disembarking) But the goal is to keep focusing fire and dropping Serpents - they will inflict heavy casualties, but that's just what it is, you can always regrow your men in the Haem vats afterwards. Also, pay attention to the board and what sort of terrain you have - yes, the shield will ignore cover, the other weapons won't, and while we're at it, if they can't see you at all they can't shoot you whether or not they ignore cover. Try to take advantage.

Beyond that a lot can depend on your list, you may wish to offer it up for review or something to see if people have more viable thoughts about how to spend your points. I know a lot of players who claim Serpent Spam is unbeatable, who are also burning points on 10 man Warrior squads in Raiders for their anti-infantry - and...yeah, that build is going to have trouble match the spam due to devoting so many points to anti-infantry. If you're dealing with serpent spam you need to devote more attention to mech, and probably use Venoms to serve as anti-infantry more than Gunboats (especially now in the new PfP setup)

Coven units or allying in CWE units might be the best answer. Taloi backed up with a Cronos would be hard to kill T7 so only wounded on 4s+ a 3+ armor save and FNP will make him very tricky to kill, Grots are also fairly durable but may have trouble catching serpents

Other than that, Venom Spamming (for the 5++ its better than nothing) Blasterborn + Blaster Warriors(maybe even as far as Blast pistol Sybarites) and DSing Scourges +Blaster Archons maybe the way to go to Demech the Wave Serpents and then let the Taloi clean up those guys on the ground.

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Beyond that a lot can depend on your list, you may wish to offer it up for review or something to see if people have more viable thoughts about how to spend your points. I know a lot of players who claim Serpent Spam is unbeatable, who are also burning points on 10 man Warrior squads in Raiders for their anti-infantry - and...yeah, that build is going to have trouble match the spam due to devoting so many points to anti-infantry. If you're dealing with serpent spam you need to devote more attention to mech, and probably use Venoms to serve as anti-infantry more than Gunboats (especially now in the new PfP setup)

But in a competitive, all-comers setting where you have 1 list to go through X-amount of factions and builds, the last thing you want to do is tailor hard to one specific thing.

It helps to know the meta sure, as Tau and Eldar are both ridiculously hard matchups (IG too), but what if you don't have ways to deal with normal SM/GK, or Necrons, or even mass-mans IG?

I played with and against Dark Eldar a good amount this week, you can find my reports here:
http://lkhero.blogspot.com/2014/10/de-played-bunch-of-games.html

Not looking good yo.

HERO wrote:

But in a competitive, all-comers setting where you have 1 list to go through X-amount of factions and builds, the last thing you want to do is tailor hard to one specific thing.

It helps to know the meta sure, as Tau and Eldar are both ridiculously hard matchups (IG too), but what if you don't have ways to deal with normal SM/GK, or Necrons, or even mass-mans IG?

I'm not sure how suggesting less gunboats and more Venoms and Blasters equates to building a list that is less functional versus any of those options.

I was not saying to remove anti-infantry, I was saying that Gunboats are too pricy for the power they bring to the board compared to the survivability of MSU versus a Serpent Spam matchup - this is a truth that actually holds up in a variety of matchups, and thus makes it a good TAC concept methinks.

Thor665 wrote:

HERO wrote:

But in a competitive, all-comers setting where you have 1 list to go through X-amount of factions and builds, the last thing you want to do is tailor hard to one specific thing.

It helps to know the meta sure, as Tau and Eldar are both ridiculously hard matchups (IG too), but what if you don't have ways to deal with normal SM/GK, or Necrons, or even mass-mans IG?

I'm not sure how suggesting less gunboats and more Venoms and Blasters equates to building a list that is less functional versus any of those options.

I was not saying to remove anti-infantry, I was saying that Gunboats are too pricy for the power they bring to the board compared to the survivability of MSU versus a Serpent Spam matchup - this is a truth that actually holds up in a variety of matchups, and thus makes it a good TAC concept methinks.

I'm not sure we understand each other.

If you have more Venoms in your list, you will suffer vs. Mechdar, Mech IG, basically anything that's more mechanized than you and can either 1. shell out a lot of S6+, or 2. are cheap.

If you have more Raiders in your list, you will suffer vs. mans-IG, most Necron lists, most Demons list, but will be stronger vs. Mech.

Tau typically wants both, since you can see quite a bit of variety.  Same with Wraithknights, without a Venoms, WKs can cause some serious issues.

Right now, I would max 2 10-man gunboats and have them sit in DS while the rest of the lances do work.  Venoms, I'm not even sure about.  I used to take them for Trueborn, but those bastards are so expensive now.

I think the best way to win vs Wave Serpent is gettin in close combat. We have no fire to spend on it, even 8 Haywire blaster cannot destroy one jinked Serpent.
He have the shield (sorry Idk what is is name in english) and jink: two things which doesn't work in CC. I've played 4 match with new Dex, 2 vs BA+Astra and 2 vs Eldar.
We simply cannot do nothing with fire against Eldar.
i don't say that our fire sucks, no, we already need some fire support to push Serpents to jink, but that's only for get theme in combat. Reavers, Grotrsques, Sslyth are alle good choice to use vs them.
Raiders are ok: they only need to do one movement, and then they can simply gettin crushed. If u push Eldar to sprint out from there, any Wave who sprint is a Wave who don't fire.
push them with CC units, and support with some fire. I think is the best way to (try to) win vs Wave spam.

Ideed, that's one of the hardest game we can found. No shame to lose against the imba

PS: that's true without allies, of course
PPS: sorry for my bad speak, I'm Italian :-/

Devote a part of your forces to DS in their rear, force them to jink mean that they can only snap fire

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I'm surprised Scourges don't help.

Why should they help?
CWE Serpents still can claim a 3+ cover save (which cant be ignored by Scourges) and do not really care about jinking (as everything is twin-linked)

Also 5 Scourges with Haywire cost nearly as much as 1 Serpent and are way mor vulnerable.

if it's just a one off game and you're tailoring you list each time try this one.

4 blaster born, drachon with blast pistol,  Archon,  blast pistol, WWP     X 2
the archon is barebones as this squad only has ONE job.

drop behind the wave serpant, where the serpant shields wont work   6  S8 lance shots at AV10   3's to hit  and 2's to glance even with  jink you should get a couple of hits through.


or ally with eldar and take 5-10 fire dragons instead of blasterborn and do the same as above

Concentrate fire and build army with enough dark lances there. Like Raiders and Ravagers. No unit we have will have a decent chance of bringing serpent down alone, but luckily - we dont need that.

Force them to jink - after you forced one, fire another, dont waste your shots in trying to bring one down. Goal is to have all jinking and wittle them down. You will take losses, but it can be done. At least thats your only option.

If they will discharge shields - bring them down.

Grots will be able to wreck WS in assault.

Maybe you should take haywires on sergeants. Like on Sybarites. Even one is still able to do damage.
If you are doing some venom spam, that might be worth it.

5 man warrior squad, Blaster, Sybarite, HW grenades. Take these as troops. Rush them supported by lance fire. You might wanna take these in Raiders.

If you will take high-value damage dealers like trueborns or scourges, you should either place them in deepstike, or hide them behind LoS blocking terrain. They should be placed in such a way so they will have a chance to do their job.

Turn 1.
Firing to supress with lances. Rush threatening units forward. Grots and troop choices. That is to force choices and maybe give a chance to Ravagers.

Turn 2.
Use elite choices to concentrate fire on WS out of cover or discharged WS. Shoot/Assault with whats left on your turn 1 rush wave.

Turn 3.
See how the dices have rolled, if poor - go down blazing, if good - go for the kill and keep concentrating on one WS at a time.

Point is - dealing with a WS seprent whatever way you are chosing is a one way trip. You cant play shooty games with them, no one can. Ultra-agression mod is on, and you must have the army that supports that kinda playstyle.
Novadays i see lists with about 3 WS, and they are certainly beatable. Seer Council there is more problem then WS.

If you are facing some really hard lists like 5 WS, Wraithknight, Hawks/Spiders and Artillery/Nightspinner - you are in a world of pain. Probably you wont be able to beat them. Due to no fault of your own, maybe Eldar will get 7ht edition update and things will bland/tone down a bit. I see competiteve DE take on many of the current power lists, but not this one.

Azdrubael wrote:

Force them to jink - after you forced one, fire another, dont waste your shots in trying to bring one down. Goal is to have all jinking and wittle them down. You will take losses, but it can be done. At least thats your only option.

I very much agree with this line. I think a lot of people get caught up trying to kill the WS, but when you have several to deal with you should just aim on getting them all to jink and killing them over a few turns.

Yes, they are twin-linked and will still get a lot of shots off, but that doesn't change the fact it drastically reduces the number of hits he'll get. If he's jinking he should only be getting a couple hits (even with the serpent shield firing) and still needs 3+ and 4+ to get a glance in. You can still get cover saves from half of those shots too so their threat should be pretty minimal after the jink.

How many does this guy usually field? Does he tend to fire the serpent shields all the time? Does he play it pretty safe and jink every time one gets targeted? This information would affect how I'd approach his army.

Double Archons with WWPs with Blaster Born, blaster born deep striking in venoms, blaster reavers, double scourges with blasters, Taloi squadrons, deep striking ravagers and flyers (Void Raven) going after rear armor should do the trick. I use the CW book primarily and those would be all the things I fear. Deepstrikers and outflankers going after rear armor is a huge threat and Dark Eldar have the speed to do it.

The problem is that a jinking wave sperpent still gets between 3 and 4 hits on average which is still enough to put a serious threat on your vehicles.

It's 3 or 4 hits on a good roll, then you only get half of those to actually glance or pen, and some of them you still get to jink against or use cover. You should only average out about 1 hull point from a snapshooting WS.

An average roll. I assumed Shuriken cannons and no movement as you are already in range (and Shurken cannons are always in)
Yes, you get to jink against most of these. But you know what happens then? You fire your few weapons non-twinlinked on a 6 and the Serpent can act normally on the next turn as YOU were now forced to jink.

My new solution - which I have to test - is allied LotD with melta. I've added two squds to my list for 310 pts. I lso use a bastion w/ void shield generator and realspace formation - all to avoid first turn destruction. I will see how that goes. I wrote up my thoughts on my thread - last page near the bottom ... and my reasoning and thoughts on our bad match ups in general:

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t6960p940-a-tdc-blog-strategies-unit-analysis-batreps-observations-tactics

HERO wrote:

If you have more Venoms in your list, you will suffer vs. Mechdar, Mech IG, basically anything that's more mechanized than you and can either 1. shell out a lot of S6+, or 2. are cheap.

If you have more Raiders in your list, you will suffer vs. mans-IG, most Necron lists, most Demons list, but will be stronger vs. Mech.

I can agree, loosely, with both of these statements.

HERO wrote:

Tau typically wants both, since you can see quite a bit of variety.  Same with Wraithknights, without a Venoms, WKs can cause some serious issues.

Agreed, though would add Gunboats are also an option vs. Wraithknights or mixed Tau.

HERO wrote:

Right now, I would max 2 10-man gunboats and have them sit in DS while the rest of the lances do work.  Venoms, I'm not even sure about.  I used to take them for Trueborn, but those bastards are so expensive now.

I disagree with this.

I still don't think we're understanding each other

What I thought I said was this;

"When opposing Serpent Spam - MSU is very useful. I would avoid Gunboats and use Venoms for your anti-infantry instead in order to bring more MSU"

What I thought you said was;

"You still need the ability to hurt infantry though, you cannot tailor."

What I thought I clarified was this;

"Venoms and Gunboats are both anti-infantry."

I'm not sure what your above post is about, as that is where you lost me.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

Quote :

I'm surprised Scourges don't help.

Why should they help?
CWE Serpents still can claim a 3+ cover save (which cant be ignored by Scourges) and do not really care about jinking (as everything is twin-linked)

Also 5 Scourges with Haywire cost nearly as much as 1 Serpent and are way mor vulnerable.

Why shouldn't they help?

Whether or not the Serpent is a good unit (and it very much is) Scourges are one of our best anti-mech tools whether or not they are a good unit. If your problem is mech (Wave Serpents) than Haywire Scourges should help deal with it.

Whether or not they equate to a win or are fairly balanced within the concept of the game is immaterial - the only question is if they are one of our best weapons against a Wave Serpent.

The answer is 'yes, they are'.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

An average roll. I assumed Shuriken cannons and no movement as you are already in range (and Shurken cannons are always in)
Yes, you get to jink against most of these. But you know what happens then? You fire your few weapons non-twinlinked on a 6 and the Serpent can act normally on the next turn as YOU were now forced to jink.

For the range and movement purposes, our weapons are 36" so I would not assume he is in range with 24" guns without moving.

Are you assuming you get twin-linked for all the shots? Because there's almost a 25% chance that you don't get twin-linked at all which drastically reduces the other weapons output. Rolling a 1 or a 2 for the Serpent Shield is another 33% chance and pretty well negates its damage as well.

Also, I didn't say you'd have to be benefiting form jink, I said jink or cover. With the mobility our vehicles have, you should be able to line up a 4+ cover save with night shields without even jinking.

Hmm, another reason to go for MSU style army build.
I would agree with the option of having long range suppression to get assault units in range. Grots look like a good plan because S5 but I also consider Beasts because of sheer speed.
I believe that Reavers are really useful too with blasters and the jump move. I would lure the enemy in stretching out of cover to be able to blast the Reavers with their shield. Only to show their rear or move in charge range.
Beast of choice would still be Khymera because it is cheap and has enough S4 attacks to worry a WSerpent. Clawed fiend might be added if you have some points to spare.

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For the range and movement purposes, our weapons are 36" so I would not assume he is in range with 24" guns without moving.

If you stay 36" all the time, your kabalites wont fire a single shot.
If you refer to ravager, they are now equally expensive to a Serpent and they are not going to force them to jink anyways.

Thats why I say "on average"
There is a 25% chance that i dont hit? Wow. There is also a 75% chance that I hit.
There is a 33% chance I roll under average? There is also a 33% chance to roll above average!

If you put your ravagers in cover there is a good chance that you can only use 2 lances. Even with 3 Lances you only have a 33% chance to put a single Hullpoint on a serpent. If it is in cover too (where no weapon gets blocked as hard as ours) the chance drops to 17,5 %. (or 11 % if they have Holofields)

Im not gonna jink because of the slim chance of losing 1 HP when I can easily destroy the Ravager next turn. And if 3 Ravagers do this, I start jinking on my last HP and blast all 3 of them next turn.
Assumed I havent already done so on first turn with my 60" Shield.

A competitive Serpent list contains aroud 6 Serpents in addition to Nightspinners. That tactic is not valid against 7 - 8 Vehicles.

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"Venoms and Gunboats are both anti-infantry."

I'm not sure what your above post is about, as that is where you lost me.

Because Venoms do not help you vs. Wave Serpents, which is the point of this thread. That's why I'm confused.

Thor665 wrote:

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

Quote :

I'm surprised Scourges don't help.

Why should they help?
CWE Serpents still can claim a 3+ cover save (which cant be ignored by Scourges) and do not really care about jinking (as everything is twin-linked)

Also 5 Scourges with Haywire cost nearly as much as 1 Serpent and are way mor vulnerable.

Why shouldn't they help?

Whether or not the Serpent is a good unit (and it very much is) Scourges are one of our best anti-mech tools whether or not they are a good unit. If your problem is mech (Wave Serpents) than Haywire Scourges should help deal with it.

Whether or not they equate to a win or are fairly balanced within the concept of the game is immaterial - the only question is if they are one of our best weapons against a Wave Serpent.

The answer is 'yes, they are'.

But they're naked little buggers who die to Eldar shooting.

They either DS in, do very little damage, and then die.
or deploy on the board, get shot, and then die.

Since they're not all that cheap, they compete directly with the Ravager for anti-tank pricing. 120 vs. 125 if you're looking for HWB.

If they don't start on the board, your Ravagers will get shot. If you hide your Ravagers and then wait for DS, there's a chance you're vulnerable to the dice gods. I think if DS is in your gameplan at all (which it should be), you absolutely need either comms relay or an Autarch. That way, you can reliably bring in everything at once and hopefully overwhelm the Eldar player with targets while you shoot.

Going second vs. Eldar means anything with Holo-fields are moving for 3+ Jink on AV12 hulls. That's already a tall order, but add in Shrouding from some Far/SPiritseers and Twin-linked everywhere, they can still muster a good amount of shooting while denying retaliatory damage.

Wait for the eldar cruddex