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

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And yes I've faced WS spam although not with pure DE honestly. Thing is while they are the premiere gunboat in todays competitive meta, people have elevated them to boogyman status. Only the shields ignore cover and they are ap-. The other guns are meh. Also there are typically 2 builds IME.. full guns meant to get up close and only the TLSL meant to sit back.

I'm not sure how you can say the other weapons are meh.  Laser lock on 36" twin-linked Scatter Lasers gives them consistent S7 Ignore Cover hits, which is infuriating. S6 glances us on 4s, which is the same as our S8 on AV12, and in both cases, get +1 on the table because of open-top vs. AP2.  The big difference is that they have 4x as many shots, is twin-linked, and half of which Ignores Cover, whereas yours do not ignore their Jink.

Their Jink is also more powerful than yours in that respect, because even if you pay for Night Shields, they flat out Ignore where you HAVE to reply to Holo-fields.  Then, there's another problem and that's the follow-up in the turn after Jink.  Twin-linked multiple shots has a much higher probability of doing damage to your units in the subsequent turns than if yours if you Jink.

All in all, this makes for a nightmare situation for us.

That's why I think one of the better solutions proposed is the Talos unit, but even then I think it doesn't have enough killing power vs. WS spam to warrant the price.  You're literally paying for a unit that might have a lot of durability, but it can be avoided entirely because of its speed ranged-firepower.  Sure, in melee, it will wreck anything that it touches, but so can a Wraithknight.  At least the Wraithknight has 2x S10 AP2 shots that can shoot beforehand, moves 12" by itself (thus 19" threat vs. an average of 13"), equally destroys WS in melee if it catches them, and is even more durable vs. WS shooting.

I can see myself adding a Wraithknight before the Talos solution because it's simply better, cheaper and has more consistency.  It's also better in other competitive matchups.

This goes to what I've been saying since we got the book.  I don't think a pure DE solution exists vs. several elements in the competitive meta, which is one of the reasons why I've been so disappointed in the codex.  If you want to play a pure DE list vs. Mechdar, I suggest just loading it up with as many lances as possible with Reavers (like some of you suggested).  Just keep in mind that if I see this across the table, I'll just prioritize the Reavers and shoot at them until they disappear.  I have tons of shots per WS, all very accurate and wounding on 2s, half of them ignoring your Jink and forcing you to save on 5s.  The Night Spinner is also horribly effective vs. Reavers, ignoring cover with its torrent and punishing melee very harshly.

Id say take some dark reapers thata help. 10 man squad ignoring jink is awesome

HERO- At this point I believe the OP is looking for DE only solutions.  I'm well aware scatter lasers force multiply but they are meh to 3++/fnp units.  Shuris more so due to their range. It's the shields I want to force hard decisions with because they are the only weapons that can do significant damage in time.

The skimmers are decoys in that list btw. I would probably flesh it out with a ravager and min grots for urien although I haven't done the math yet.

Edit- I should add I'm under no illusion the match would be easy. Its very cat and mouse and really up to the eldar player to lose it since that type of list is much less skill intensive. It's very rare that I field serpents myself. I don't like I win buttons. But in the context of this book and this match I feel bikes are probably better than skimmers.

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Which as far as i can tell, remains irrelevant to everything we were discussing.

I'm asking for specifics to what you're talking about, which is still talking about the same thing just in greater detail. It's 110% relevant.

My approach for pure DE is also similar, but I had lances on the Ravagers and completely skipped Grosteques. My reasoning for them is that any melee options in our codex is just too cliche. There's no glory to be had in this very shooty edition, and the fact that we lost Haywires further limits our use of melee because frankly, our melee options are too slow. Those that are not too slow are either too expensive and not worth the points, or are just flatout subpar.

The direction I want to explore is this:

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1849
21 KP

HQ:
Archon, WWP, Blaster = 110

TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster, Venom SC = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Venom SC = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120

ELITE:
5x Trueborn, 4x Blaster, Raider Lance/NS = 195

FAST:
9x Reavers, 3x Heat Lances = 174
Razorwing, Lances = 140
Razorwing, Lances = 140

HEAVY:
Ravager, Lances = 125
Ravager, Lances = 125
Ravager, Lances = 125

Shoot with lances, maintain some Venoms in your list and keep them in the backfield, WWP Archon delivers a killsquad of lances to someone's ass, while Razorwings do the heavy lifting for anti-infantry. If I can cut out some of the Reavers, I would bring some of the gunboats up to 170 point Gunboats.

Other ways to flex off this backbone: Gunboats replacing some of the Raiders, which then you can drop the Venoms (if so desired). No matter what, I would not drop the Blasterchron with the WWP. It's seriously one of the best things in the book: Giving you 6 lances where you want it, how you want it.

Quote :

1830
20 KP

HQ:
Archon, WWP, Blaster = 110

TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
10x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS/SR = 170
10x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS/SR = 170
10x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS/SR = 170

ELITE:
5x Trueborn, 4x Blaster, Raider Lance/NS = 195

FAST:
Razorwing, Lances = 140
Razorwing, Lances = 140

HEAVY:
Ravager, Lances = 125
Ravager, Lances = 125
Ravager, Lances = 125

Here, you exchange opening salvo with more boots on the ground and more anti-infantry. You can replace the 5-man Raider for 3x Venoms too if you want more ranged shooting, however that will reduce your total lance salvo.

list discussion:

The best thing I see from the lists that has not been mentioned and is relevant to the topic is an awareness that Night Shields are a little...'meh'.
At 15 points a pop, you can start buying new units instead of paying for them for your other units.
So, with the idea you want to maximize units on the board to minimize the ability of Serpent Spam to chew through you - dropping Nightsheilds is good and probably doesn't change your survivability versus Eldar in any real way. Conversely, the benefit versus other armies is, though not terrible, not exactly awe inspiring either - it is probably of more value to a perspective Archon to not take them.
I would put as an exception to that - fliers, just since they only ever get jink saves, really, if you're building a flyer you may wish to consider this as an upgrade there.

Thor665 wrote:

list discussion:

The best thing I see from the lists that has not been mentioned and is relevant to the topic is an awareness that Night Shields are a little...'meh'.
At 15 points a pop, you can start buying new units instead of paying for them for your other units.
So, with the idea you want to maximize units on the board to minimize the ability of Serpent Spam to chew through you - dropping Nightsheilds is good and probably doesn't change your survivability versus Eldar in any real way. Conversely, the benefit versus other armies is, though not terrible, not exactly awe inspiring either - it is probably of more value to a perspective Archon to not take them.
I would put as an exception to that - fliers, just since they only ever get jink saves, really, if you're building a flyer you may wish to consider this as an upgrade there.

It's true, Night Shields are a scam.  The 3+ Jink is not worth 1/4th the price of the vehicle.  I see what you're saying about the flyers, but the thing is AV10.  If it's going to get shot by anything worthwhile, you're most likely going to eat enough fire to disappear anyway.  In my experience, the guys who take Skyfire in their lists is going to kill whatever they're shooting at in most cases.

If I had extra points to take on NS, it would be on the Flyers, or Blasterchron's pimp-ride. Think about it this way though, even if you don't take NS on the flyers, just blow your load on an angle that can be reached by a board edge. That way, if you take any damage next turn, hopefully you can just Supersonic off.

Brom wrote:

Now usually I would not advocate reavers assaulting tanks. Its a bad idea with templates and blasts but against full on serpent spam it is the best and really the only method worth talking about because engaging in a shoot out is not a profitable trade for us. Cronos double as backfield insurance for when they attempt to boost out of harms way. Which they will (at the cost of shooting). Anticipate disembarked DAVUs to bubble wrap and other tricks but I feel this shell is a good starting point to playing spoiler (at least with the tools we have).

Thats all for now.

I personally would prefer softer targets myself, but the fact that the only weakness of the Serpent is getting close to it and clobbering it to death and also that Reavers are perhaps the only close combat unit that we have that is able to

1) Hit it hard enough to kill it
2) Fast enough to keep up with the Serpents
3) tough and numerous enough to absorb the attacks

Now we are looking at a unit that is around 270 pts (12 reavers with 4 special weapons, and 3 caltrops) to hunt down a serpent, and by the virtue of redundacies, we are looking at 540 points to bust one unit at least (2 units to one serpent).

I am not sure if people are willing to spend that much points to kill a serpent, but I know that having one guaranteeed serpent kill a turn is better than having a serpent with a hull point left left from shooting running around killing us. I am of the school of thought for the new dark eldar that we should just go and play the Realspace Raider detachment and fill up our fast attack with all we can have. Scourges and Reavers combined will be the best to murder serpents reliably without having to sacrifice our list balance against other opponents.

Crisis_Vyper wrote:

Now we are looking at a unit that is around 270 pts (12 reavers with 4 special weapons, and 3 caltrops) to hunt down a serpent, and by the virtue of redundacies, we are looking at 540 points to bust one unit at least (2 units to one serpent).

If you're able to get behind the Serpents then a smaller unit will do the job. 6 Reavers with Cluster Caltrops generate, on average, 7 S6 hits and 4 S4 Rending hits. That's an average of 1.16 glances and 2.33 pens just from the caltrops, all with no cover save and no benefit from the serpent shield. That's a dead Serpent for 126 points.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Crisis_Vyper wrote:

Now we are looking at a unit that is around 270 pts (12 reavers with 4 special weapons, and 3 caltrops) to hunt down a serpent, and by the virtue of redundacies, we are looking at 540 points to bust one unit at least (2 units to one serpent).

If you're able to get behind the Serpents then a smaller unit will do the job. 6 Reavers with Cluster Caltrops generate, on average, 7 S6 hits and 4 S4 Rending hits. That's an average of 1.16 glances and 2.33 pens just from the caltrops, all with no cover save and no benefit from the serpent shield. That's a dead Serpent for 126 points.

I was having a more pessimistic though initially where I will not be able to take a bck shot due to savvy Eldar deployment and also 4 or more serpents are firing at the squads, thus warranting a larger squad to do the job. Nonetheless smaller squads might be able to saturate the field enough to have a more reliable kill rate, and that is a major factor.

However, I will also arm the Reavers with heatlances or blasters for a more reliable kill as well.

[quote="HERO"]

Quote :

Their Jink is also more powerful than yours in that respect, because even if you pay for Night Shields, they flat out Ignore where you HAVE to reply to Holo-fields.  Then, there's another problem and that's the follow-up in the turn after Jink.  Twin-linked multiple shots has a much higher probability of doing damage to your units in the subsequent turns than if yours if you Jink.

Our vehicles will do less damage after the jink, yes, but our troops inside are unaffected allowing us to still put out plenty of blaster shots at full bs. Since we have the numbers advantage too we get to benefit from having some that won't be jinked at all while we do have enough different shooting units to make all of theirs do so.

I like the idea of running minimalist reaver units to combat serpents. For 73 points you can get 3 reavers with cluster caltrops and a heat lance/blaster....take our real space detachment for between 3 and 4 units of them. They are very small and can be hidden, can be reserved if neccessary, jink against anything allowing cover and still charge. Good against serpents, skimmers, transports of all kinds, mostly anything with av 10 on the back. If a unit dies it's a very small pt loss. Alternately you can double up for 6 reavers with two caltrops and two lances/blasters. But at that point your points are on pat with serpents and more than most other targets.

Tip- Model caltrops and special weapon on same guy to maximize damage if only one survives.

I am thinking about these to combo with two haywire scourge units some wwp blasterborn and maybe an allied fusion autarch with mantle/in an upgraded 6 man.

My two cents....

Egory and I were discussing the value of MSU reavers (squads of 12x3 with a caltrop/heatlance with double real space raid detachments), in this thread the other day. The reasoning was as follows.

Mushkilla wrote:

MSU reavers give you a lot of scoring/denial power in maelstrom missions thanks to their mobility. They are mobile and cheap enough to be sacrificially used as blockers and obstructions (blocking the movement of Imperial Knights for example). They also create threat saturation as they are dangerous enough with caltrops and heatlances/blasters not to be ignored (if you ignore them they don't need to jink and fire at full BS). As a result they can draw fire away from the rest of your army. Finally because of their mobility, caltrops and heatlance/blaster even a single reaver can be a threat.

How does this dynamic affect serpent spam?

Serpents need to shoot the reavers, as they can destroy the serpents in assault with caltrops. However, if the serpents shoot the reavers they drop their shields leaving themselves vulnerable to AP1-2 weapons (your raiders/ravagers/razorwings). Jink needs to be declared when a shot hits, before you know whether it has penetrated or not. Also any penetrating hit could cause problems (weapon destroyed, stunned and immobalised are all problems for serpents). Does the serpent player take his chance from a single heatlance/blaster shot and not jink? Or does he play safe and jink? If he jinks, he is BS1 next turn significantly reducing his damage against the reavers (about 0.66 wounds per serpent against reavers with FNP 5+). Combine this with the fact that MSU reavers can easily position themselves at multiple angles, meaning if the serpents are to shoot the reavers with their shields they will need to turn to face them, potentially exposing their rear armour to other reavers and lances in the dark eldar army.

All of this forces a huge amount of cognitive strain on your opponent, there are so many factors and so many possible responses to the barrage of questions that you are asking him with all these reavers. After all the reavers only make up half the dark eldar army, which he hasn't even had time to think about!

I'm sure this will take a lot of practice to get to grips with but i'm hopeful.

The true power of this dex is in the bikes. While there are plenty of viable builds that involve skimmers I feel the best lists will now focus heavily on reavers.

Nice point Mush, I was thinking Reavers in small squads too but I'm not sold on RsR detachment yet. This might tip it over though.
The target saturation is huge by this build. If you combine in some ranged shooting, real assault threats the Serpents don't have enough shooting power to handle all incoming units.
It would be a great sight: Dark Eldar swamping the opponent in bad choices

You only need to pray that you don't have to play Killpoints as then your royally screwed anyway.

The biggest problem so far has been needing to take two HQ, it's a big tax. But even a single realspace raid detachment can benefit nicely from having 6 MSU reaver squads as long as your not considering other FA choices.

For the original post,

I havent played my DE against wave serpent spam at all.  From a Eldar players (me) perspective I would suggest firing at each wave serpent forcing them to jink.  When they jink they have to fire snap shots in their next turn.  For the twin-linked scatter laser to work you must hit with one of the shots for the other guns to gain the twin-linked special rule making it harder for him to use his weapons effectively.
Remember for them to jink in 7th edition they must declare jinking before you roll to hit, not after.  So before rolling to hit ask them if they wish to jink, if he does it increases your chances of survivability if not it increases your chances of killing a wave serpent.

EDIT: For the new 7th edition codex in my 2k list, the shooting/anti heavy support I played with so far are two scourge units with 4 hayware blasters in each squad. 4 raiders and 3 of them have Kabalite warriors with Dark Lances, one bomber with void lances because if I jink I can still snap fire them but it can easily be replaced by a Razorwing. Melee are 2 units of 9 man Bikes with Cluster caltrops and a arena champ, and a unit of grotesques in a raider with Archon and Succubus. Its enough shots to take out vehicles or atleast keep them jinking.

Mushkilla wrote:

The biggest problem so far has been needing to take two HQ, it's a big tax. But even a single realspace raid detachment can benefit nicely from having 6 MSU reaver squads as long as your not considering other FA choices.

Would you need all 12 for reavers? Of could you do 10x3 with 2 units of Scourges?

Or do you feel (Against Serpent spam) that Reavers are TOO important?

With that are you taking True Borns with blasters? Or just 5man troops with 1 blaster (4-5 of these for more unit spread).

Are we talking about 1750? 1850 or 2k lists also?

Im just wanted to know b.c in a couple days I will test 2-3 lists on a tournament serpent spam player to test some things out.

I have glimpsed through this and have noticed many are talking about JUST shooting at WS's to take them down. I do agree with several posts about forcing them to jink or just making them think defensively to respond to take out a target of ours.  But we have all been reassured that at least a couple of WS's in a serpent spam list ARE going to be within assault range of at least a few units. Ya, ya, we dont have haywire grenades anymore....While RJB are a decent way to HoW their WS to death,We ALSO do have access to 3 Talos in one unit now, OR if you wanna spend a few more points, take the formation from the coven codex and take the 5 talos formation that has scout... I still feel the best way to bring down a WS is in the assault phase from MC's or anything that can pack a punch like that.

Using a squad or even formation of them is going to force a flank side for your opponent to react to. which means less of your squishy stuff being targeted as quickly.  And dont forget, the Talos is fearless and has FnP. SO it can chase them down(forcing repositioning on their behalf) to the last wound.

Disrupting their plan is a great way to force them to give you a better opportunity.

Maybe I missed it but it's always important to look at all options when playing and weigh the numbers. With that in mind I haven't heard much in this thread about the good old fashioned RAM IT. Small upgrade and now all of the sudden there will be a new threat to the Eldar player... raiders. More time for the reavers and scourge to work some magic. Target saturation with all options on the table. Raiders don't have to ram just WS's, Should put holes in rhinos and other lightly armored vehicles. A new mental frame of mind may be required for this DE edition.

Patzerwv wrote:

Maybe I missed it but it's always important to look at all options when playing and weigh the numbers. With that in mind I haven't heard much in this thread about the good old fashioned RAM IT. Small upgrade and now all of the sudden there will be a new threat to the Eldar player... raiders. More time for the reavers and scourge to work some magic. Target saturation with all options on the table. Raiders don't have to ram just WS's, Should put holes in rhinos and other lightly armored vehicles. A new mental frame of mind may be required for this DE edition.

Ram is hardly a threat.
AP- means that there is no chance of exploding, ram doesnt force jink (you cant even jink a rammin maneuver anymore in 7th) its only S7 and forces the vehicle AND passengers to snapshot.

In return when the serpent rams you (S6 +1 because its a tank) next turn it will glance on a 3+ and a pen still has a small chance to make an explosion happen.

It's S10 when you have a shock prow.

Huh what? Its S7 with Shock Prow...

Finn wrote:

It's S10 when you have a shock prow.

Shock Prows make us count as AV 14, so its 7.

Mushkilla wrote:

The biggest problem so far has been needing to take two HQ, it's a big tax. But even a single realspace raid detachment can benefit nicely from having 6 MSU reaver squads as long as your not considering other FA choices.

As I understand it (and there is another thread in the Dark city discussing THIS) but rules as written seem to imply you can take a single member of the court of archon as your HQ. that amounts to a 10 point HQ tax which is ridiculously affordable.

The changes to jink: namely the model targeted must declare it is jinking before to any to hit rolls are made. The first problem is there is no to hit rolls made with blast or template weapons. So rules as written there is no to Hit dice for them to declare they are jinking before, admittedly this one is somewhat weak). On the other hand when there is a scatter onto a vehicle that was not targeted, there is no allowance for a vehicle that was not targeted to jink. If either of these turn out to be the case our razorwing fighters unloading a missile barrage might decently against a parking lot of WS or any jinking units for that matter. wounding on a 5 that denies (33.33% chance of a glance) is better than a 4+ (50%) that includes a 4+ jink save (50%) yielding only a 25% to glance. The odds still aren't great admittedly... just trying to think outside the box with the tools we have...

ulijikaru wrote:

Mushkilla wrote:

The biggest problem so far has been needing to take two HQ, it's a big tax. But even a single realspace raid detachment can benefit nicely from having 6 MSU reaver squads as long as your not considering other FA choices.

As I understand it (and there is another thread in the Dark city discussing THIS) but rules as written seem to imply you can take a single member of the court of archon as your HQ. that amounts to a 10 point HQ tax which is ridiculously affordable.

Speaking of alternate threads there is also one which deals with jink not working against blasts and templates because there is no to hit roll for either of those attack styles which jink must be declared before attack rolls are rolled. If that turns out to be the case our razorwing fighters unloading a missile barrage might do quite well against a parking lot of WS or any jinking units for that matter.

Jink BRB: pg 167 "When a model with Jink rule is "Selected" as a target for "shooting" attack"

Meaning it doesnt matter what is shooting you, just as long as your being targetd, so If a "Blast" shooting attack targets Raider A raider then Raider A may jink, but if that blast Scatters over Raider B, then Raider B cannot jink, b.c it wasnt targeted by a shooting attack.

Trying to stay on topic, but the 10pts HQ will work and is a good Idea, once I saw the Court is an HQ it self I was telling me Eldar friend to just take 1 court for tax to allie in eldar (He was very happy).


Having a DE detachment for only a 10pt HQ tax and 80 troop tax isnt bad at all to get some extra FA slots. With no Archon you would be saving 50pts

I was looking at (to fight Eldar at 1750pts) this list x2.

1750 vs Eldar dbl detachment wrote:

Lhamaean

5x Warriors w/ Raider+DL
5x Warriors w/ Raider+DL
5x Warriors w/ Raider+DL

3x Reavers w/ HL+Caltrops
3x Reavers w/ HL+Caltrops
3x Reavers w/ HL+Caltrops
3x Reavers w/ HL+Caltrops
3x Reavers w/ HL+Caltrops
3x Reavers w/ HL+Caltrops

Ravager

Total list gives, 6 Raiders, 12x3 (36) bikes and 2 Ravagers