# Wave Serpents



## Deathypoo (Jun 27, 2011)

Has anyone made effective Eldar armies without Wave Serpents? I'm curious how that goes.

I love Wave Serpents, but they're starting to frustrate me. I feel like they're so essential to any decent Eldar army that they're basically just a tax. 1500 point game? Not really, you need at least 3 x 145 pt Serpents, so you only get to have fun list-building with 1065 points. A 4th or 5th Serpent wouldn't be a bad idea either.

PS. I know competitive tourny lists often have to follow the meta so certain units end up required, but I just like playing casually... to win.


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## neferhet (Oct 24, 2012)

Bumping this because i'm curious too 
I can't believe nobody has tried this!


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## jams (Sep 19, 2009)

you can build quite effective lists using jetbikes, warp spiders, scorpions, rangers and warwalkers. extremely fast scoring units coupled with infitrators and rediculously fast light armour killing dudesmen


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## iamtheeviltwin (Nov 12, 2012)

I run without any wave serpents in my Harlequins. My list is competitive and can go toe to toe with any list I have faced. This list has evolved from 1000pts to the 1850pt mark where most "tournament" lists sit.

*Servants of the Laughing God - 1848 pts*

*HQ (445 pts)*
Maugan Ra
Farseer - Mantle of the Laughing God, Spirit Stone
Warlock Council - (2 Warlock, 1x Bike, 1x Foot) 1x Singing Spear (on footlock)

*Elites (436 pts)*
Harlequin Master Troupe - (10 man) Troupe Leader (Power Weapon), Shadowseer, DeathJester, 2x Fusion Pistol, 3x Kiss
Harlequin Strike Troupe - (5 man) Troupe Leader (Power Weapon), Shadowseer, 2x Fusion Pistol, 1x Kiss

*Troops (221 pts)*
Rangers - (5 man) 
Jetbike Squad - (3 man) 1x Shuriken Cannon
Storm Guardians (10 man) 2x Flamer

*Fast Attack (60 pts)* 
Vyper - Scatter Laser

*Heavy Support (586 pts)*
Dark Reapers - (4 man), Exarch w/ Fast Shot, EML w/ Flak, Starshot Missile on Reapers (flak)
Falcon - Holofields, Scatter Laser
Wraithknight - Sword, Shield, 2x Starcannon

*Fortification (100 pts)*
Aegis Line - Quad Gun

General style of play: This is a pretty aggressive in-your-face list. The Falcon, Vyper, Wraithknight, storm guardians and Master Troupe usually charge up the field (often in a flood the zone style). The Rangers and Dark Reapers provide cover fire. While the bikes hang back to either grab late turn objectives or provide support where needed. Maugan stands with the quad-gun and the Farseer slips to where it can best use it's abilities (often trailing the forward units).

The list is a decent all-comers list, it has the tools to handle armor, flyers, hordes, etc. I won't say it is an easy list to play, but it is the list that fits my playstyle and has always been competitive.


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## Styro-J (Jan 20, 2009)

I have had a lot of success with lots of themed lists without serpents. Usually my troops end up being bikes wraithguard or sometimes rangers.

Vypers, Spiders, Hawks and Hunters can do great damage and don't depend on Serpents. Some Elites rely on Serpents more, so avoid Dragons and Banshees. Wraithknights can take the brunt of shots that would have been sent to a Serpent and will often draw that fire away from your troops. 

Eldar have some pretty scary units in every slot, so we can handle ourselves fine with our transport. Troops will miss being able easily get to objectives, but bikes and Rangers have ways to mitigate this problem.


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## Deathypoo (Jun 27, 2011)

Iamtheeviltwin... that list is pretty wacky. If I were playing against it, I wouldn't have the foggiest idea what to shoot haha.

It is definitely nice to see people play without serpents successfully. Some good ideas here.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

A list I would try if I had the money would be an Eldarzilla one, something like:

Avatar
Wraithseer

10 Wraithblades with Swords
5 Scytheguard in Serpent
Jetbikes to taste

Two Vanilla Wraithknights
Swordlord

Add Spiders to taste. Run at people with a Shrouded Block of Blades with flanking Knights and a sneaky Avatar with Scytheguard for anti-terminator work (the only real weakness of the list) and scoring/dakka where you can from bikes and spiders. If I could justify £140 on the knights it'd be a nice project!


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

Shoot the troops. They wouldn't last terribly long. The other stuff is bad, but he's really low on scoring units.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Creon said:


> Shoot the troops. They wouldn't last terribly long. The other stuff is bad, but he's really low on scoring units.


Hence the "Add Jetbikes to taste" part.  Two to four units depending on size should be enough.


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## Styro-J (Jan 20, 2009)

I believe he was talking about eviltwin's list, which poo commented that he wouldn't know what to shoot. He has considerably fewer troops that are much more fragile in a list that would have a much rougher time against most opponents. Harlies are fun, but they have a whole slew of issues these days. In all honesty, I'd rather use Banshees.


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## iamtheeviltwin (Nov 12, 2012)

I figured that he was talking about my list. I can tell you from experience between proper care and feeding of the troop units (reserves, LoS, cover, and outflanking) and being in the opponent's line no later than turn 2 with combat units the troops are low on the target priority list. Holding one or two of my objectives and then contesting most of my opponent's wins me most objective based games.

Ideally I would add in another ranger unit, windrider, or storm guardian unit, but for competitiveness I need some anti-air at that point level (and I haven't gotten around to painting/converting them). Moving towards 2k another unit or two of troops would be added.

As for the Harlequins, I am not the biggest fan of the current (old) Veil of Tears...however, I have found that it often changes the opponent's target to other units at longer ranges rather than risk losing a turn of shooting. The only real "WTF" to the Harlies is why they did not get battle focus, a rule that seems ideal for them. It really seemed like a case of not wanting to update the Dark Eldar unit, so they left them the same.


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## Chosen of Malal (Nov 5, 2012)

Reece from 0comp uses no serpents and wins rather consistently.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)




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