Dealing with wave serpents

Hey there.  I just started DE, as i wanted a different playstyle and landed a decent ebay purchase for a 1.5-2k army.  My other armies are:

Horde Dark Angels (entire 100 man company + some support at 2k)
Necrons
Daemons

(more on why this is relevant in a second).

One of my main opponents plays Eldar, not particularly hardcore but we still both play to win and any sensible person writing an eldar list can't really avoid wave-serpents.  We agreed to play a 1k pts game today just to dip my toes in the (probably poisened) DE pool.

My list was roughly:
cheap archon
2x wych raiders+ haywire
1x trueborn venom + blasters
2x warrior venoms
1x razorwing
1x ravager

can't really remember his list, but it involved wraithguard, waveserpents, and a unit of grav platforms.  before rolling for anything, we got our miniatures out and just looked at each other and mutually asked 'is there much point playing this game?' and went and played infinity instead.

we've both got extensive experience of games involving multiple wave serpents, and had a good long chat and couldn't see any way the eldar would lose without extreme bad luck.  i couldn't 'kite' them with 60" range, even with 7 'anti tank' options trying to flat out kill them before they kill me is just ludicrous.  lances/blasters being no better than krak missiles as far as a WS is concerned, and twice the number of krak shots would still struggle (horde marines have tried, and actually suceed... but only because they have 100 MEQ bodies to weather a war of attrition ).  wyches at this points level aren't up to it, as they're the most threat (best able to circumvent the shield via assault) but as such are top of the target priority list and hilariously squishy.  in bigger games with more wyches maybe, but then you're facing more wave serpents too.

what gives?  what sorcery must one employ to down these wretched contraptions?

Our discussion yielded some options.  large beast packs rushing the eldar lines would do it i think, BUT one of my main daemon builds revolves around the flesh hound rush which is essentially the same thing.  i REALLY want to avoid duplicating an existing army type... i was drawn to DE by the sleek vehicles and want if possible lists heavily focused around venoms and a few fliers (so sexy    )

what nuggets of wisdom have the devious minds here gleaned with their experience?

I have played many a wave serpent. Going first helps. Each serpent that goes down cuts down on their firepower quite substantially. Focussing on one till it's dead is a very good idea. Using LOS blocking terrain is paramount to prevent them from shooting at you in the first place.

Assault is definitely the best way to deal with them. A large beast pack will easily weather their firepower and destroy them in assault. Either that or they shoot their entire army at the beast pack and leave your Wyches free to get in close.

A large Beastpack is indeed very good against serpents, also I have had a lot of success with deepstriking Scourges. I run 2 groups of 5 with 2 Heat Lance each. These will cut into Serpent rear armor like a hot knife through Slaanesh's filthy toungue.

Also remember that lances and blasters are AP2 and thus manage an explodes result much easier than a krak missile

Massaen wrote:

Also remember that lances and blasters are AP2 and thus manage an explodes result much easier than a krak missile

Not when I use them...  

CC is the best way to kill Serpents as mentioned. Yuor list is quite low on AT though. And the Jet doesn't come before T2 if then. I use Beasts, Ravagers, and Wyches. Normally those three are enough to take out most of the Serpents.

T1 shooting from Ravagers tend to be inefficient as they have their shields on but its possible to kill one serpent before it gets to shoot you.

It might be a really silly question, but why not us jetbikes with a heatlance? Turboboost over the enemy, deal some damage,
then hide and then shoot him in the back. A heatlance is not the best when aproaching head on, but it can't be ignored.
Serpent shields don't function in the rear arc... At least, they bought you another shooting phase.

it's trivially easy to hide the rear arc of a wave serpent with it's wierd hull shape. who are these players that let you get these juicy rear shots?

Well, enemy can only face one way right?

And if they turn towards Reavers, Ravagers will have their back in sight.

Besides its not so easy to hide from 12 move melta.
Push the Wyches middle to threaten WS with Haywire assault and both Reavers and Ravagers will stay alive.

they face the way that leaves the tiny rear facing their table edge.  a wave serpent within a few inches of it's table edge can turn well past 45 degrees and still only present side armour with no space behind to deepstrike.  if used as a shooting platform there's no incentive to move in a way that opens space for anything to get behind.

i typically don't see wave serpents leave this 'protective' stance until mid/late game, as with their speed there's simply no need to... they can get to where-ever they need to go in 1-2 turns easily.  3-4 turns before that being easily enough time to deal with anything that relies on getting close and/or to the rear.

if wave-serpents were wandering about towards midfield then i wouldn't really have an issue with them tbh.

Still assault is the way to go. Have your beast/grots stay in midfield behind losblock So thet they cannot come to the midfield.

What kind of los blocking terrain do you have on yuor tables? Not ruins as DE needs total line of sight blocked against Serpents and their shields.