Unit of the Week - Wave Serpent

[Karhedron]

Welcome to Asuryani "Unit of the Week" series.

 

Each week a different unit will appear, with the idea being that we discuss how best to use that model on the battlefield. This series will focus on Codex entries initially. If/when we exhaust those possibilities, we will start looking at Forgeworld and Legends if people are interested in those units.

 

These threads are not to discuss proposed changes to units or long complaints about poor behaviour. I would like to keep them constructive and focus on making the best use of the units as they stand. Inevitably, in a codex as large as ours, there is going to be some overlapping of battlefield roles. For this reason, I will allow comparisons against other units that fill similar roles provided the posts remain primarily focused on the unit under discussion.

 

Mentioning other units in the context of synergies and army building is of course permitted (even encouraged). This week's entry is:

 

Wave Serpents

 

What are you thoughts here folks? How best would you use Wave Serpents?

To compliment a list, or to build a list around?

Will you be running multiple units?

What units (if any) would you have embarked?

Which weapon options are you taking and are they affected by the above?

Are you buffing this unit? If so, how?

Stratagems of note?

Over to you.

 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by Karhedron

[MasterAO]

I've only used it once sofar in a 1000pt battle (vs Tau), where it transported 10 howling banshees. It did it's transporting stellarly, and the banshees won the battle for me when they cleared out most of the troops for my opponent. It is very tanky and I can see why many like 4-6 of them, as they output alot of shots and can also follow up with mortal wounds with the serpent shield.

[FormelyKnownAsSmashyPants]

Looking at starting a Swim Haan army, so scatter bikes will be my bread and butter, but I love the look of the wave serpent sooooo much, from an an aesthetic/appearance perspective. Thinking about running some with either guardian defenders ordire avengers for grabbing objectives and maybe one with some banshee's or sccorpions. What do people think? Also what weapons are best? Will probably magnetite though.

[Karhedron]

I have found triple shuricannons to be pretty effective as they ignored the -1 to-Hit penalty for moving and firing. However since that rule is going away in 9th, a lot more possibilities open up.

 

You have mentioned that you will be running scatter bikes so you should be covered for anti-infantry firepower. I would be tempted to look at dual starcannons as killing Marines never gets old. They can also do decent work against vehicles when combined with Doom.

[Kryczek]

As of right now the Wave serpent is over costed for what it does now.  Even 10 pts would probably be enough.  I have 3 and they rarely see use now which is a shame.