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 juraigamer wrote:


More than 3 fliers at 2k or under is a big no no for playing friendly games.

That's something I can agree to. Just had a doubles "friendly" tourney 500 points for each player where one team brought two Vendettas and two Tervigons. Then had a 1250 game against three Vendettas. I really hate those things.

 wuestenfux wrote:
The Helldrake would be scarier if he had the ability to fight in cc like a Dread or so. Just flying around with a baleflamer will not always do enough damage. Look at Termies.

He can vector strike at S7. Sure, not exactly close combat, but does make for a decent extra oomph.

It's d3+1 auto-hits with no hit back. What's not to love?

Ailaros wrote:Firstly, the helldrakes need to survive. They're difficult to handle, not impossible.

Secondly, they're not going to be killing any marines if they're in transports.

So you're going to make suppositions about the Heldrakes surviving, but none about Rhinos survivng? 'Cause that makes sense....

Or am I supposed to make the ridiculous assumption that the Chaos player is an idiot and takes nothing to pop transports?

Ailaros wrote:Thirdly, 5 is a little high against a player who REALLY spreads out.

People come out with this line all the time but in practice it doesn't work out that way. with the unit spread out to the max. 2" coherency, the template is still 8" long, with 2" on one end being slightly more than 2" wide, meaning that part alone can hit 4 dudes. Stick that at an angle and you should get at least 5. I tried this out and this is the truth of the matter.

Ailaros wrote:Fourthly, yeah, they're good against marines, but that's kind of it.

Right because it's not like we play a game where most of the armies are Marines or anything....

As for hordes not caring, if you are forcing 50 guys to spread out their full 2" coherency, you are forcing them closer to other potential threats, reducing their own threat potential in a given area, and forcing them to take up deployment space. They care. That's not to mention that most hordes can't always spread out (Orks often clump so as to maximise the models that can engage on the charge) and many have low Ld, especially in the case of Guardsmen, who are easily the most common of this unit type, so causing that morale check can often be enough.

Ailaros wrote:mech-heavy lists won't care if you flamer their vehicles.

Pity they care about so much else these days then; I'd give this more thought if mech-heavy lists were half as common as they used to be. And it's not like the Heldrake has a thing called Meteoric Descent that easily tears many vehicles or anything....

Ailaros wrote:In the end, we're talking about something that has a niche role. It's good in that niche, but that doesn't mean it's good against everything.

And who said it's good against everything? It's good against infantry. Fact. Every army has infantry. Fact. Thus they have a place as a solid choice in all armies. If you are going to argue against things that can't handle every single unit type in the game then you might as well quit, 'cause there's no such thing.

Facts next time please. And for the record, I'm not saying they are cheesy, 'cause they are not, but too many people are brushing them off with silly reasoning, and it makes me think people will be in for a nasty surprise when they face them.

JGrand wrote:In addition, 50 MEQ is a very low number these days. I personally wouldn't run a marine list with less than 60 plus a guard blob.

Maybe where you are from, but not on this side of the pond.

JGrand wrote:People crying about flyers are bad. Period. Ignoring them is a very valid option.

Right because a player of top quality skill who has won GTs is still bad just because he complains about flyers (and yes such players have done this on this very site) I do love how you think you are personally qualified to dictate to the rest of us who is a bad player though, period. And granted you know your stuff about competitive gaming, but you seem to assume that the only way to be competitive is the same way you do it. You don't need 100+ models and/or Guard blobs to win. They are good but not the be all to end all, noting also how different metas effect these things. Out of the last 3 big tournaments over here an army with a Guard blob hasn't placed at all. All that considered and getting back to the main point, even the best players struggle at times and get frustrated with things, so saying that they are automatically bad just because they complain about something is kind of ridiculous, and even comes off a tad arrogant.

As for ignoring flyers, this is only valid for certain army builds, who can either stand up to the pain or have enough bodies to mitigate it. Not every army is built this way, and not every winning army is built this way either. Different armies have their own way of dealing with things. And the thing is you know this, I've seen you say it to others in different threads.

juraigamer wrote:Any helldrakes without the flamer are better at anti-tank and flier, which is supposed to be their role.

Did you write the book? Or are you best buds with Phil Kelly? Because this sounds like nonsense to me; they are exellcent at killing infantry, they are mediocre at killing flyers and good enough at killing tanks, yup, must be meant for anti-tank/AA because juraigamer said so...Units don't have roles they are 'supposed' to fill, they fill the role you make them fill. They do however have roles they are better at and for the Heldrake that in anti-infantry, not AA.

juraigamer wrote:More than 3 fliers at 2k or under is a big no no for playing friendly games.

Again, according to who?

 Savageconvoy wrote:
It's d3+1 auto-hits with no hit back. What's not to love?

That vector strike is sweet indeed and rear armour is a prime target for 2 to 4 S7 automatic hits... then you can use your weapon against something else. They can easily finish off small MEQ squads already weakened by a previous pass so you don't have to waste another template against them...

I was thinking about having 2 heldrakes but since they are not very welcome in friendly games I will probably just stay with one in these games for now. I will review that point of view when playing more competitiveley tho... they are still cheaper than defilers and that AP3 torrent template that do not scatter is really nice and they are still more worth their points and more survivable than the Forgefiend. They are hard to take down and that 5+ inv. save and it will not die make them tougher to glance to death. Yes I agree a good shot can bring them down and a Vendetta or other good flyer hunters will make short work of them but if I can down these before they down it... .

They are great infantry killers and since the 6th edition is objective based it denies what your opponent need the most is you take out all his troops... victory points... and in the games I play I don't see that many troops on the table... 4 squads of 10 is the usual number in 2k games and 2 Helldrakes can take care of half of them if they flying around unhindered (hovering is great on a flyer).

So it's clear, they are not cheesy, they are quite balanced. 3 of them on the table is out of the question, but 2 in a 2k semi-competitive game is a valid option... at least for me.

I'd play against sure, wouldn't call it chessy.

But, it depends on who your opponents are, what type of army they are using, and if they are willing to rework their army just to play a competitive game with you. The goal of the game is for everyone to have fun, so as long as that is happening, there's no problem.

Proxy wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
It's d3+1 auto-hits with no hit back. What's not to love?

That vector strike is sweet indeed and rear armour is a prime target for 2 to 4 S7 automatic hits

Good thing it doesn't hit the rear armour then.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Proxy wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
It's d3+1 auto-hits with no hit back. What's not to love?

That vector strike is sweet indeed and rear armour is a prime target for 2 to 4 S7 automatic hits

Good thing it doesn't hit the rear armour then.

Indeed. vector strike is resolved against side armour. Still learning something about 6th edition everyday it seems !

 Ailaros wrote:

Godless-Mimicry wrote:Even if 3 passes where true, with each killing 5 Marines each of those passes, that's 45 Marines dead. So exactly how is killing all but 5 of the Marines in that proposed list at the end not a big deal?

Firstly, the helldrakes need to survive. They're difficult to handle, not impossible.

Secondly, they're not going to be killing any marines if they're in transports.

Thirdly, 5 is a little high against a player who REALLY spreads out. Against better displacement, they're going to struggle to make their points, back, even assuming the first two don't give you problems, which they probably will be.

Fourthly, yeah, they're good against marines, but that's kind of it. As mentioned, a horde army isn't going to care about an Ap3 flamer any more than they're going to care about an Ap5 one, and mech-heavy lists won't care if you flamer their vehicles.

In the end, we're talking about something that has a niche role. It's good in that niche, but that doesn't mean it's good against everything.

Well, about the niche role: In the new ed., we will see more infantry-based armies and less fully mech lists. Moreover, units need to disembark if they want to claim an objective. Sitting inside a vehicle is no longer an option. Therefore, the baleflamer is a serious threat, today. If you field two Hellturkeys, then even more so.

Godless-Mimicry wrote:Facts next time please.

Fact: terminators will not care about bale flamers
Fact: you will only do one wound at a time to monstrous creatures
Fact: you will rarely do serious damage to most vehicles
Fact: you will never damage squads embarked in transports or buildings
Fact: horde players won't care about losing a few infantry to a flying flamer
Fact: helldrakes will never count as scoring (even on Scouring, their hulls will be more than 3" away)
Fact: helldrakes will never contest an objective
Fact: helldrakes will never start out on the board, and are likely to fly off the board at least once.
Fact: good players know how to displace troops
Fact: skyfire weapons exist
Fact: non-skyfire weapons can still take down fliers
Fact: not all weapons kill infantry as well, or as efficiently as others

Are you really going to drag this into endless quote wars? If you're willing to be reasonable here, then we can just skip to...

Fact: baleflamer helldrakes are only really worth taking against tightly clustered infantry models from one part of a few army's codexes. Outside of this niche, they suffer. The more resources you pour into this niche is more badness for you when your opponent doesn't bring something that the helldrake excels against.

Baleflamer helldrakes may always have something to shoot at, but they will not always have things worth taking a helldrake to shoot at them. Given that what they do well for their points is so narrow, you have to be careful when you bring them, much less bringing several.

Baleflamer Heldrakes don't impress me much. When you get right down to it, a baleflamer Heldrake is basically a less effective Colossus for 30 points more. Oh no.

To be honest, it's hard to envision a situation where I would consider Heldrakes cheesy unless it involved tailored lists.

 Kingsley wrote:
Baleflamer Heldrakes don't impress me much. When you get right down to it, a baleflamer Heldrake is basically a less effective Colossus for 30 points more. Oh no.

To be honest, it's hard to envision a situation where I would consider Heldrakes cheesy unless it involved tailored lists.

Well that may be it. 2 Heldrakes in a 1500 pts list against a highly specialised SM army like the Blood Angels the Grey Knights or the Space Wolves might seem like tailoring against those army because they have few troops and they die easily to an AP3 template.

Likewise, they are a hard counter to units like Long Fangs and since they start off the board they are immune to first turn fire. Losing 2 or 3 Long Fangs in the second turn can be a crippling blow to a Space Wolf player, if the return fire is not sucessful they will become great fire magnet that will roam the sky of the opponent deployment zone and they will be a nuiscance to troops who are not in armoured vehicles.

 Ailaros wrote:
Fact: terminators will not care about bale flamers And they don't care about a lot of AP3 weapons, so what?
Fact: you will only do one wound at a time to monstrous creatures Why would you target a MC with the flamer? With any flamer?
Fact: you will rarely do serious damage to most vehicles Why would you use a flamer on a vehicle? Any flamer?
Fact: you will never damage squads embarked in transports or buildings Because you're not bringing any anti-tank if you bring a Heldrake? Sorry to hear that it completely removes the HS slot. I thought template weapons still hit through fire points though.
Fact: horde players won't care about losing a few infantry to a flying flamer And hordes don't care about railguns or lascannons either, guess we should throw all those away
Fact: helldrakes will never count as scoring (even on Scouring, their hulls will be more than 3" away) And neither will Vendettas. Guess they aren't so great now
Fact: helldrakes will never contest an objective See above comment
Fact: helldrakes will never start out on the board, and are likely to fly off the board at least once. Have you even played in a game against flyers? This isn't exactly a downside.
Fact: good players know how to displace troops And good players will know how to use a template to still get some hits or take advantage of spread out troops.
Fact: skyfire weapons exist So flyers aren't good anymore? How many units/weapons have skyfire right now?
Fact: non-skyfire weapons can still take down fliers And non-tank can take down tank and Non-MC can kill MC. Point?
Fact: not all weapons kill infantry as well, or as efficiently as others Um... What?
Fact: baleflamer helldrakes are only really worth taking against tightly clustered infantry models from one part of a few army's codexes. Outside of this niche, they suffer. The more resources you pour into this niche is more badness for you when your opponent doesn't bring something that the helldrake excels against.
MEQ is apparently a small part of 40K now? And only a small part of those parts? Really?

DO NOT dismiss he heldrakes. They are a darn good unit. While it's true there are a select few armies who are not affected as much by the heldrakes, heldrakes are effective against the majority of the army builds out there and are a very good Take-All-Comer's unit. One thing people need to take into consideration is that it is not just the heldrakes you are fighting. It is the entire army. Oblits, autocannon havocs and plasmas/meltas should be opening up transports to always give the drakes some type of target. They work in synergy to the rest of the army. And if you think they can't hurt MC's or vehicles, their S7 vector strike says otherwise.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kingsley wrote:
Baleflamer Heldrakes don't impress me much. When you get right down to it, a baleflamer Heldrake is basically a less effective Colossus for 30 points more. Oh no.

I'd have to disagree with this statement. While both the colossus and heldrake have infantry-killing power, the heldrake is a much better and much more dangerous unit. It's got better accuracy (as in, it doesn't scatter), it can hurt both vehicles and MC's with its vector strike, can get to almost any target anywhere on the board and is much more resilient. Moreover, the colossus has to compete with manticores, hydras and leman russes.

And I guess it's also important to note that when a transport gets exploded it leaves the occupants bunched up and makes a nice juicy target.

Why are people so adamant against something that has a clear, but versatile roll while being decently priced? This reminds me of the argument against the DP. Just because something isn't so OP and not an auto-take it's put into the trash bin.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
And I guess it's also important to note that when a transport gets exploded it leaves the occupants bunched up and makes a nice juicy target.

Why are people so adamant against something that has a clear, but versatile roll while being decently priced? This reminds me of the argument against the DP. Just because something isn't so OP and not an auto-take it's put into the trash bin.

1 Heldrake is almost an auto-take in every army I build and around me Chaos Player almost always have one too. In fact, one player around us got one and it was so darn good and so hard to kill that everyone got one soon after, me included. Mostly, people that are saying they are not that good at what they do and not worth their points are the ones that have to meet them on the battlefield. One Drake will always find a good target and nothing have their mobility in our codex.

The reason I want 2 of them is because I want a baleflamer and an hades autocannon. They will have separate targets and if one can pop a rhino then the other one can torch what's inside... As I saw it with my partner, 2 baleflamers are a little much against a MEQ army low in troops but they get the job done and their success helped us won our 2 last games against MEQ armies. That Drake that goes in hover mode in turn 4 to make a wide turn and torch a squad on an objective is annoying as hell... it can die right after that for all I care, the job was done.

People will adapt rapidly for sure, they will bring flyers to counter mine and IG's can be allied to so many armies it's almost not fun , they will see much more play time around me as allies as they ever did as a full army...

 Savageconvoy wrote:
And I guess it's also important to note that when a transport gets exploded it leaves the occupants bunched up and makes a nice juicy target.

Why are people so adamant against something that has a clear, but versatile roll while being decently priced? This reminds me of the argument against the DP. Just because something isn't so OP and not an auto-take it's put into the trash bin.

How often do you see necrons run something other than Wraiths?
I think this might be the same case. If you are taking helldrakes, you aren't taking bikes or spawns. Both of which are so good for the points, it seems that the cost of the helldrake isn't just the points, but also the loss of the slot for the other two better fast attack choices.

-Matt

But you have 3 slots. Taking two drakes and a bike squad isn't terrible by any means. Admitted that taking 3 heldrakes may leave one wanting for bikes, but it's not like the CSM is really lacking a lot of options. It's base troops seem to be pretty good and easily upgraded.

I play Tau and I just got one to add to my CSM allies and can't wait to try it out. I have no problem popping transports. So I plan on getting a lot of use from the flamer. Its going to provide a lot that I can't field right now (i.e. a flying AP3 weapon that can vector strike) while my suits are going to give it plenty of options to fire at once those transports begin exploding.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And even if they aren't the "best" unit in the FA slot, I appluad people who take the less exceptional units.

Heldrakes tend to be 'cheesy' in any game where the other guy doesn't have access to Aeronautica, because without that they've got little or no effective anti-aircraft weaponry.

Then isn't it really more of an issue of flyers being cheesy?

 Savageconvoy wrote:
But you have 3 slots. Taking two drakes and a bike squad isn't terrible by any means. Admitted that taking 3 heldrakes may leave one wanting for bikes, but it's not like the CSM is really lacking a lot of options. It's base troops seem to be pretty good and easily upgraded.

I play Tau and I just got one to add to my CSM allies and can't wait to try it out. I have no problem popping transports. So I plan on getting a lot of use from the flamer. Its going to provide a lot that I can't field right now (i.e. a flying AP3 weapon that can vector strike) while my suits are going to give it plenty of options to fire at once those transports begin exploding.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And even if they aren't the "best" unit in the FA slot, I appluad people who take the less exceptional units.

Wow, I tought about Tau allying with Orks but never with CSM... Great synergie between the 2 armies, you're going to love the Heldrake.

 jy2 wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
Baleflamer Heldrakes don't impress me much. When you get right down to it, a baleflamer Heldrake is basically a less effective Colossus for 30 points more. Oh no.

I'd have to disagree with this statement. While both the colossus and heldrake have infantry-killing power, the heldrake is a much better and much more dangerous unit. It's got better accuracy (as in, it doesn't scatter), it can hurt both vehicles and MC's with its vector strike, can get to almost any target anywhere on the board and is much more resilient. Moreover, the colossus has to compete with manticores, hydras and leman russes.

Thus far I haven't found flamer Heldrakes very effective against me at all, while the Colossus nearly always inspires fear-- it's not so impressive when there are lots of multi-story ruins, but pretty much every other time it's a pretty tough unit to face. The point about competition is good, but the flamer Heldrake also has serious competition-- the Hades autocannon Heldrake is much better versus flyers (and provides the only strong anti-flyer option in the book IMO), Chaos Spawn are a great pressure unit even if they don't quite match up to Necron Wraiths, and Bikers are very efficient units as well.

Note that I do play that the Heldrake cannot kill models outside of its line of sight with its baleflamer attack. If you allow it to do this, it becomes much more powerful and IMO a better match for the Colossus.

Maybe I'm missing something, but why would LOS matter for a template? Maybe I'm mixing it with something from 5th, but I thought anything under it was hit and could take a wound regardless of LOS.

Right because a player of top quality skill who has won GTs is still bad just because he complains about flyers (and yes such players have done this on this very site) I do love how you think you are personally qualified to dictate to the rest of us who is a bad player though, period. And granted you know your stuff about competitive gaming, but you seem to assume that the only way to be competitive is the same way you do it. You don't need 100+ models and/or Guard blobs to win. They are good but not the be all to end all, noting also how different metas effect these things. Out of the last 3 big tournaments over here an army with a Guard blob hasn't placed at all. All that considered and getting back to the main point, even the best players struggle at times and get frustrated with things, so saying that they are automatically bad just because they complain about something is kind of ridiculous, and even comes off a tad arrogant.

Top players aren't complaining about them. They (rightfully) realize that flyers are a beneficial tool that must be accounted for. Bad players cry OP and want to ban them.

As for whether or not I'm "personally qualified" to label bad players, I am fully entitled to my opinion on the matter. Feel free to disagree though. I never stated that you need 100+ models or guard blobs to win, my point was that the existing paradigms of 6th edition are dead, and bodies are one of the new ones. There are many ways to build good 6th edition lists without flyers of bodies. The people crying about flyers are the ones still running Razorspam and crying cheese because flyers are a hand counter.

As for ignoring flyers, this is only valid for certain army builds, who can either stand up to the pain or have enough bodies to mitigate it. Not every army is built this way, and not every winning army is built this way either. Different armies have their own way of dealing with things. And the thing is you know this, I've seen you say it to others in different threads.

Allies. Easy way to mitigate weaknesses. And for the record, my current list doesn't use flyers or bodies, just tough to kill units that neither fear tesla destructors nor Helldrakes. Obviously, I do understand this. However, you can make a balanced "good" list with any army (plus allies) that can deal with or ignore flyers.

 Kingsley wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
Baleflamer Heldrakes don't impress me much. When you get right down to it, a baleflamer Heldrake is basically a less effective Colossus for 30 points more. Oh no.

I'd have to disagree with this statement. While both the colossus and heldrake have infantry-killing power, the heldrake is a much better and much more dangerous unit. It's got better accuracy (as in, it doesn't scatter), it can hurt both vehicles and MC's with its vector strike, can get to almost any target anywhere on the board and is much more resilient. Moreover, the colossus has to compete with manticores, hydras and leman russes.

Thus far I haven't found flamer Heldrakes very effective against me at all, while the Colossus nearly always inspires fear-- it's not so impressive when there are lots of multi-story ruins, but pretty much every other time it's a pretty tough unit to face. The point about competition is good, but the flamer Heldrake also has serious competition-- the Hades autocannon Heldrake is much better versus flyers (and provides the only strong anti-flyer option in the book IMO), Chaos Spawn are a great pressure unit even if they don't quite match up to Necron Wraiths, and Bikers are very efficient units as well.

Admittedly, the first 2 times I played against dual-heldrake Chaos lists, I had no problems with them. With my nids, I killed both with my flyrant and with my orks, I just totally ignored and killed everything else in the army (nob bikers + horde orks). Sometimes, if you build your list properly (i.e. either with good AA shooting or with lots of bodies designed to withstand flyer drive-by's), the damage from heldrakes (and this is not just limited to the heldrakes, but all flyers) can be mitigated. That's why I don't think they are cheesy units at all, at least not if you bring a solid, balanced army.

However, that doesn't mean they aren't good. The majority of armies out there still run MEQ-like units and oftentimes, they don't bring enough bodies (or resiliency) to withstand sustained offense from both flyers and ground units. That is why so many people have problems with flyer-builds and in particular, the heldrakes. Like I said, only a select few lists, and only if those lists are built properly, do you need not fear the heldrake. And even then, they are not completely immune to the heldrake as it can go hunting for objective-sitting units, destroy tanks in fly-by's and basically draw fire that can otherwise be put to better use shooting down other units.

While both the crons and chaos have very stacked Fast Attack FOC slots, I don't really see much of an issue here with Chaos. With necrons, it's basically only wraiths and scarabs and usually the ration is 2 wraiths to 1 scarabs. For Chaos, I would say that the heldrake is #1 in any non-Epidemius build. Bikes and Chaos spawns would then be secondary choices on average. However, unlike the crons, I really don't see Chaos players spamming their FA slots like necrons do with theirs so usually, you will have at least 1 available slot for a heldrake. If anything, Chaos will probably fill up their Heavy slots first. For IG, on the other hand, I see Colossus as a 3rd or 4th choice, behind manticores, leman russes and basilisk/medusas. That's why you will see a lot more wraiths and heldrakes than you will see colossi. The colossus just isn't the best Heavy Support option for their army.

Note that I do play that the Heldrake cannot kill models outside of its line of sight with its baleflamer attack. If you allow it to do this, it becomes much more powerful and IMO a better match for the Colossus.

I also play it that way.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something, but why would LOS matter for a template? Maybe I'm mixing it with something from 5th, but I thought anything under it was hit and could take a wound regardless of LOS.

In 6th edition, you can only allocate wounds to models within line of sight.

 Ailaros wrote:

Godless-Mimicry wrote:Facts next time please.

Fact: terminators will not care about bale flamers
Fact: you will only do one wound at a time to monstrous creatures
Fact: you will rarely do serious damage to most vehicles
Fact: you will never damage squads embarked in transports or buildings
Fact: horde players won't care about losing a few infantry to a flying flamer
Fact: helldrakes will never count as scoring (even on Scouring, their hulls will be more than 3" away)
Fact: helldrakes will never contest an objective
Fact: helldrakes will never start out on the board, and are likely to fly off the board at least once.
Fact: good players know how to displace troops
Fact: skyfire weapons exist
Fact: non-skyfire weapons can still take down fliers
Fact: not all weapons kill infantry as well, or as efficiently as others

Are you really going to drag this into endless quote wars? If you're willing to be reasonable here, then we can just skip to...

Fact: baleflamer helldrakes are only really worth taking against tightly clustered infantry models from one part of a few army's codexes. Outside of this niche, they suffer. The more resources you pour into this niche is more badness for you when your opponent doesn't bring something that the helldrake excels against.

Baleflamer helldrakes may always have something to shoot at, but they will not always have things worth taking a helldrake to shoot at them. Given that what they do well for their points is so narrow, you have to be careful when you bring them, much less bringing several.

Excellent facts! The thing is both you and mimicry are correct. Who is more correct depends on variables such as list, terrain, and player skill. Mimicry with his comments did a great job of explaining why certain things such as spreading out is not a simple fix to avoid the power of the helldrake, why ailaros makes some key points such as describing why the damage output for it is not as overpowering as it seems.

The strengths of this thing is amazing and quite frankly obvious(perhaps that explains mimicry aggressive post), just look at any of JY2 post to learn why this thing can be deadly if you are not prepared for it.

The weaknesses are not as obvious. First weakness is that its a flyer, meaning reserves which means it might not come in on time. Not really a big weakness at first glance but template opportunities tend to evaporate quickly such as cc units getting into cc, or simply getting within 18 inches of their deployment edge. There are ways to negate the deployment edge trick depending on deployment or they can hover but if they hover than it should get shot down. If the helldrake is suppose to handle the majority of the anti-infantry duties and it doesnt come in that is a major problem. Nothing is worse than a transport cargo clumped up from havoc or fiend fire with no helldrake to clean up the mess.

Second weakness is that it only has 1 weapon, a 4 is all you need to turn it into an overpriced vector strike. That means with each pen you have a 33% chance of neutralizing the thing.

This weakness is very my point of viewish, I dont see top players using 3 of them or investing 1/4 of their points in a 2000 point game in a flyer that is best used with an amazing ap 3 flamer. Just to many points for anti-infantry, I see 2 helldrakes being the norm and extremely competitive. With that said if you have 2 flyers that gives things with the interceptor rule alot of power over the helldrake. First it can take the helldrake out before it can shoot and, secondly you know that the first target will be the unit firing the interceptor weapon. Factor that in with the helldrake not coming in on the first turn the damage output decreases drastically.

The helldrake is a really good unit you just have to prepare for it.

The anti tank support and vector strike trick work well together on the hell drake. It's very hard to line up both when using the flamer.

Furthermore if you're running CSM and can't kill things with a 3+ or worse save, your doing it wrong. CSM have the best troops in the game and CSM are killy all around. The more you take the flamer on the helldrake, the more enemy fliers will destroy your dudes.

Spreading out stops the flamer from doing massive damage, as does staying in a transport.

I won't listen to a guy who only plays GK and CSM, nor will I listen to him when his signature states he's looking for helldrake autocannon bits.

The heldrake with the autocannon seems way too expensive to justify taking, with its mediocre damage output.

At least the bale flamer is absolutely brutal against the right targets. A perfect counter to longfang spam. Pretty funny that it comes from the same person who created long fang spam.

I used two of them well to take out heavy support devs and the like quite easily. Daemonforge makes it so whatever I hit usually dies.

Also hovermode is great, especially latter turns.

Also found out that it is the only flyer that can claim objectives, its wings sit low enough.

Had it move into hover mode, positioned it on a angle so that the closest orcs were near an objective and with daemonforge managed to kill the 10 orcs closest and knock them off on the last turn.