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The way i See it, If i Take the Auto Cannon. Not only can i Tear apart Fliers, I can Also tear apart ground units with ease.

And taking Havocs to do Anti Air instead of a Helldrake is just dopey. they work out the same ammount of Points practically for a Unit of squishy marines, that can be pie plated on the first turn. wile the helldrake with a Hades can take out fliers and ground units. Plus has a 5+ inv Save against attacks on itself. And the ability to regain a HP. using the baleflamer works well for anti infantry, unless you are fighting necrons, when a unit of warriors can glance the helldrake to death in one volley of shooting. Just because you needed to get close to them to get down a template weapon.

cerbrus2 wrote:Not only can i Tear apart Fliers, I can Also tear apart ground units with ease.

With ease?

Yes, you showed up on turn three, spent a couple of turns blowing up a 35 point rhino after it already dropped off its cargo and then flew off the board. 180 points well spent...

And that's still what everybody seems to be missing. Step back for a moment and ask yourself if it's worth spending that many points on an autocannon. It isn't. Regardless of if it has skyfire or not.

 Ailaros wrote:

cerbrus2 wrote:Not only can i Tear apart Fliers, I can Also tear apart ground units with ease.

With ease?

Yes, you showed up on turn three, spent a couple of turns blowing up a 35 point rhino after it already dropped off its cargo and then flew off the board. 180 points well spent...

And that's still what everybody seems to be missing. Step back for a moment and ask yourself if it's worth spending that many points on an autocannon. It isn't. Regardless of if it has skyfire or not.

So 180 points is better spent on an anti infantry flamer, that forces you to get close to your openents armies in order to use the template. And if it take you a few turns to take down a rhino, You really are unlucky considering the Hades can glance a rhino to death on 3+. with a single volley of 4 shots, not to mention it can also vector strike it and glance on a 4+. And besides Those Rhinos are great for taking that All important First blood KP. How maney turn will it take you to take down a Space marine Unit that is properly Spaced out? Two At least, If your Lucky.



Then there is the Matter of the Hades Pinning. Possibly negating an infantrys Movement and shooting for a whole turn.

 Ailaros wrote:

cerbrus2 wrote:Not only can i Tear apart Fliers, I can Also tear apart ground units with ease.

With ease?

Yes, you showed up on turn three, spent a couple of turns blowing up a 35 point rhino after it already dropped off its cargo and then flew off the board. 180 points well spent...

And that's still what everybody seems to be missing. Step back for a moment and ask yourself if it's worth spending that many points on an autocannon. It isn't. Regardless of if it has skyfire or not.

you're assuming a pretty much worst case scenario here that A: it shows up late when it has a 66% chance to show up earlier and B: it has no better target than an Rhino (in which case the rest of your army has likely done its job well), a textbook strawman argument.

If those are the scenarios you insist on using then you can make any unit look bad. A Vendetta faces no different a situation...

It's more likely to come in turn 2, hit something much more valuable with 2-4 S7 Ap3 hits and 4 S8 hits

 mercer wrote:

Why do I need anti air fire power? Is that a serious question? I need anti air to stop fliers. I am not bothered about Vendettas taking out a Heldrake I need the Heldrake to take out Vendetta etc.

Then you're going to be disappointed. A Heldrake with a hades autocannon will not stop Vendettas from fly-swatting your other Heldrakes out of the sky ("Oh, no! One of my 2 Vendettas lost a single hull point this turn! Good thing each one can do just as much damage to you while being cheaper!").

As for everything else, well, Heldrakes are quite possibly the toughest unit in the game. Nothing short of Vendettas or literally hundreds of points worth of massed S7+ fire can hope to take down a Heldrake with anything other than pure dumb luck (for which, as we all know, there is no defense). Why bother defending yourself against all the other fliers that will struggle to put a dent into you anyway? If' he somehow manages to field enough non-Vendetta fliers to threaten your Heldrakes, his ground game will suffer for it, so you won't need as many Heldrakes to burninate everything in the first place. And even if there was a need for Heldrakes to defend themselves against multiple fliers, it's not like the hades autocannon can shoot at more than one of them at a time anyway.

And as for ground fighting, well...The whole point of a non-transport flyer is to produce enough damage that the enemy needs to kill it in order to stand a decent chance of winning (which, since it's a flyer, will prove difficult). The hades autocannon does not do this.

The baleflamer does.

Three Heldrakes with baleflamers will make marine players weep. They are fully capable of wiping out nearly all of the troops in the enemy army on their own, making victory all but assured. Or, if you've got the enemy troops under control via other methods, they can turn that destructive potential towards Devastators, Veterans, Bikes, whatever. And while they're at it they'll be vector-striking everything whilst laughing at the enemy's pitiful attempts to shoot them down.

This is why you bring Heldrakes.

A Heldrake with a hades autocannon is just an overpriced hades autocannon that won't die (partially because it's tough, but mostly because it's not worth killing in the first place).

I personally run 2 drakes, one with the autocannon and one with the flamer...

it works well enough for me anyway.

Undoubtedly the flamer is the most cost efficient of the two, but its all relative to what armies you are facing, the autodrake is good against mech armies for obvious reasons, blow a transport up then then ideally flame the contents... with the flamer drake

Just my humble experiences, oh and its funny to blow a flamer drake out of the sky with the autocannon, the filthy look i got from my opponent was priceless

 Ailaros wrote:
What does a flying autocannon bring that missile launcher havocs don't? What can't twin-linked lascannons do that an autocannon with skyfire can?

Furthermore, I'm going to reiterate what you simply passed over. Why do you need anti-air in the first place? CSM are more than capable of winning the ground game and rendering fliers rather pointless. Spending a huge number of points for a crappy AA weapon doesn't seem the way to handle this problem.

The hades brings skyfire, something you have to pay extra for the Havocs. Also brings additional strength, though of course has higher ballistic skill. Those Havocs are almost same cost as the Heldrake and a lot more fragile. Twin-linked lascannons have less chance to hit.

Why do I need anti air? Is that a serious question? I would rather have a crappy hades auto cannon than have nothing which can deal with fliers at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

reaper with no name wrote:

 mercer wrote:

Why do I need anti air fire power? Is that a serious question? I need anti air to stop fliers. I am not bothered about Vendettas taking out a Heldrake I need the Heldrake to take out Vendetta etc.

Then you're going to be disappointed. A Heldrake with a hades autocannon will not stop Vendettas from fly-swatting your other Heldrakes out of the sky ("Oh, no! One of my 2 Vendettas lost a single hull point this turn! Good thing each one can do just as much damage to you while being cheaper!").

As for everything else, well, Heldrakes are quite possibly the toughest unit in the game. Nothing short of Vendettas or literally hundreds of points worth of massed S7+ fire can hope to take down a Heldrake with anything other than pure dumb luck (for which, as we all know, there is no defense). Why bother defending yourself against all the other fliers that will struggle to put a dent into you anyway? If' he somehow manages to field enough non-Vendetta fliers to threaten your Heldrakes, his ground game will suffer for it, so you won't need as many Heldrakes to burninate everything in the first place. And even if there was a need for Heldrakes to defend themselves against multiple fliers, it's not like the hades autocannon can shoot at more than one of them at a time anyway.

And as for ground fighting, well...The whole point of a non-transport flyer is to produce enough damage that the enemy needs to kill it in order to stand a decent chance of winning (which, since it's a flyer, will prove difficult). The hades autocannon does not do this.

The baleflamer does.

Three Heldrakes with baleflamers will make marine players weep. They are fully capable of wiping out nearly all of the troops in the enemy army on their own, making victory all but assured. Or, if you've got the enemy troops under control via other methods, they can turn that destructive potential towards Devastators, Veterans, Bikes, whatever. And while they're at it they'll be vector-striking everything whilst laughing at the enemy's pitiful attempts to shoot them down.

This is why you bring Heldrakes.

A Heldrake with a hades autocannon is just an overpriced hades autocannon that won't die (partially because it's tough, but mostly because it's not worth killing in the first place).

Do you have some kind of boner with Vendettas or something? There are more fliers in the game than Vendettas and I believe only the Vendetta and Stormraven are the only ones which are av12. I would rather have something which can stand a chance of doing some damage to a flier than nothing at all i.e baleflamer.

Again, why you talking about Vendettas for? Broadsides with high yield missile pods and velocity tracker can deal with Heldrakes reasonably well and even better IF markerlights manage to hit. Then there's other flier weapony i.e blood strike missiles, multi meltas, typhoon missile launcher, tesla destructor etc.

Why bother defending myself against fliers? If I have no anti flier than how exactly am I going to deal with them? And yes the hades cannot shoot at more than one though the Heldrake can vector strike another target (not great chances), but could fire at the same target if wishes putting more damage on all these Vendettas every where. Vendettas also aren't expensive, three of them won't take much points from a reasonably points sized game and will leave enough points for plenty of ground troops.

You seem to be missing my point on the hades autocannon. Burning troops is all good but what about when they are in vehicles? No burny death then. I still bounce you back to enemy fliers going around, which you seem to be side stepping and ignoring.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:

cerbrus2 wrote:Not only can i Tear apart Fliers, I can Also tear apart ground units with ease.

With ease?

Yes, you showed up on turn three, spent a couple of turns blowing up a 35 point rhino after it already dropped off its cargo and then flew off the board. 180 points well spent...

And that's still what everybody seems to be missing. Step back for a moment and ask yourself if it's worth spending that many points on an autocannon. It isn't. Regardless of if it has skyfire or not.

Why would the Heldrake turn up on turn three for? It could turn up on turn two which it has just the same chances as doing. You can't pick and chose when a unit arrives on the table in order to make your arguement stronger. Also the Heldrake is 170 points, which isn't far off the price of flakk Havocs, which are easier to kill.

Martel732 wrote:
Can't CSM get divination? Use prescience on lascannon havocs, and the lascannons can kill all kinds of other stuff too.

If only, CSM have to ally daemons to get the best psykic lores

mercer wrote:

BrotherOfBone wrote:Why do you need a Hades Autocannon when you can just Vector Strike it?? :S

Vector strikes are random and only S7.

Small quibble: Vector Strike is a guaranteed 2+ S7 hits while you can wiff with the Autocannon sometimes. Vector Strike is more reliable and consistent than the Autocannon. Its why if you take just one Heldrake most people would recommend grabbing the Baleflamer (aside from the Baleflamer being amazing; almost too good).

But totally agree the Skyfire Hades is nothing it discount out of hand.

 mercer wrote:


Do you have some kind of boner with Vendettas or something? There are more fliers in the game than Vendettas and I believe only the Vendetta and Stormraven are the only ones which are av12. I would rather have something which can stand a chance of doing some damage to a flier than nothing at all i.e baleflamer.

Again, why you talking about Vendettas for? Broadsides with high yield missile pods and velocity tracker can deal with Heldrakes reasonably well and even better IF markerlights manage to hit. Then there's other flier weapony i.e blood strike missiles, multi meltas, typhoon missile launcher, tesla destructor etc.

Why bother defending myself against fliers? If I have no anti flier than how exactly am I going to deal with them? And yes the hades cannot shoot at more than one though the Heldrake can vector strike another target (not great chances), but could fire at the same target if wishes putting more damage on all these Vendettas every where. Vendettas also aren't expensive, three of them won't take much points from a reasonably points sized game and will leave enough points for plenty of ground troops.

You seem to be missing my point on the hades autocannon. Burning troops is all good but what about when they are in vehicles? No burny death then. I still bounce you back to enemy fliers going around, which you seem to be side stepping and ignoring.

Vendettas are one of (if not the only) cost-effective method of neutralizing a Heldrake. Vendettas are so stupidly powerful that they will trash you no matter what weapon you put on your Heldrake. So, there's no point in worrying about them because you can't stop them anyway.

Heldrakes "deal" with other fliers the same way Land Raiders "deal" with plasma guns; they ignore them.

The thing you seem to be not getting is that Heldrakes are so tough to kill that most fliers (statistically speaking) cannot put a dent into them (the Vendetta, again, being an exception). Having a Heldrake just to shoot enemy fliers is like having a Land Raider dedicated to shooting guys who fire plasma guns at your other Land Raiders. It's a complete waste of points. You know how much damage a LC/MM GK Stormraven will statistically inflict per turn on a Heldrake?

0.65

That's right, a 205 point flier (and one of the better ones out there, mind you) isn't worth a damn against a Heldrake.

Every turn your Heldrake spends shooting at other fliers is a wasted turn, because those fliers aren't a threat to it. The only way they can take a significant bite out of you is by overwhelming you with sheer numbers.

But guess what? Not only will a single hades autocannon not help you against that (it can only shoot at one flier per turn, and in our scenario there are about 6 shooting at you), but fielding that many fliers would require going lighter on troops. So, in this scenario, you lose one more Heldrake than usual, but since you need to burn fewer targets to win, it still works out in your favor.

No matter how you slice it, a single skyfire hades autocannon is not worth 175 points and a FA slot. You're giving up what you're great at to be slightly less terrible at something you're going to suck at no matter what you do.

And as for cracking transports, you have vector strikes and the entire rest of your army to do that. I'm sure you can figure something out.

I'm getting 0.39 for the TL lascannon and 0.54 for the TL MM. For a total of 0.93. Granted, this isn't great either.

But if you don't shrug off the MM, it has a good chance of straight up killing the thing.

reaper with no name wrote:


Vendettas are one of (if not the only) cost-effective method of neutralizing a Heldrake. Vendettas are so stupidly powerful that they will trash you no matter what weapon you put on your Heldrake. So, there's no point in worrying about them because you can't stop them anyway.

Heldrakes "deal" with other fliers the same way Land Raiders "deal" with plasma guns; they ignore them.

The thing you seem to be not getting is that Heldrakes are so tough to kill that most fliers (statistically speaking) cannot put a dent into them (the Vendetta, again, being an exception). Having a Heldrake just to shoot enemy fliers is like having a Land Raider dedicated to shooting guys who fire plasma guns at your other Land Raiders. It's a complete waste of points. You know how much damage a LC/MM GK Stormraven will statistically inflict per turn on a Heldrake?

0.65

That's right, a 205 point flier (and one of the better ones out there, mind you) isn't worth a damn against a Heldrake.

Every turn your Heldrake spends shooting at other fliers is a wasted turn, because those fliers aren't a threat to it. The only way they can take a significant bite out of you is by overwhelming you with sheer numbers.

But guess what? Not only will a single hades autocannon not help you against that (it can only shoot at one flier per turn, and in our scenario there are about 6 shooting at you), but fielding that many fliers would require going lighter on troops. So, in this scenario, you lose one more Heldrake than usual, but since you need to burn fewer targets to win, it still works out in your favor.

No matter how you slice it, a single skyfire hades autocannon is not worth 175 points and a FA slot. You're giving up what you're great at to be slightly less terrible at something you're going to suck at no matter what you do.

And as for cracking transports, you have vector strikes and the entire rest of your army to do that. I'm sure you can figure something out.

Sorry, dude, but I have to totally disagree with you. Sure Vendettas are under costed and that's because they are costed as skimmers and sure they are powerful, triple lascannons for the win, however they will not always trash a Heldrake. First they will hit with 2,25 shots after twin-linked goodness, and they then have a 1.51 chance of doing something - the heldrake has 0.50 chance of saving this damage. If you shake or stun it then the Heldrake can save against it, so really you're going to need a 5+ to trash the Heldrake as you put it.

I am not worried about Vendettas. You keep mentioning Vendettas all the time. I am concerned about flyers in general, which the Heldrake with vector strikes (getting 3 on average) and using the hades and strip the Vendetta of two hull points - the Heldrake is doing a lot better job and taking down the Vendetta than the Vendetta is taking down the Heldrake, considering you said it will trash it...

No, you cannot ignore enemy flyers or they will just carry on dishing out the dirt. It's not the case of the enemy flyers being a threat to the Heldrake it is the case of the flyers being a threat to my army and I need some way of dealing with them, you are not understanding my point on that. And your example of the Land Raider firing at plasma guns is totally incorrect and a wrong example. I have clearly explained that the Heldrake can take off two hull points of a Vendetta while the Vendetta doesn't have awesome chances of taking out a Heldrake. I would also like to know where have six Vendettas come from? Talk about weighting the arguement in your favour - six Vendettas vs a single Heldrake, lol .

At the end of the day if you do not think the hades is worth then that's your opinion, though if you're going to backup your arguement you need to do a fair comparsion and not do six Vendettas vs one flyer, six Vendettas would destroy any flyer so that's a stupid comparsion. Also you need to get your info right as a Vendetta has very slim chances of taking out a Heldrake.

When do you ever see just one Vendetta? 3 Vendettas can fry a helldrake a turn, and only cost as much as 2 helldrakes. I see this happen constantly where I play. The Vendetta (not singular) in general is a hard counter to the Helldrake. They are both significantly undercosted. With the FAQ ruling, the Helldrake needs to be pushing LR points.

Im more worried about the other fliers hitting my Troops and Tanks, Not my helldrake. I can and have easily handled two doom scyths with 1 helldrake I only ever use 1 helldrake. If i didnt start vector striking and shooting my Auto cannon at the DoomScths. i would not have maney Tanks or men left for that matter. Being as there is not much in the way that can take a shot from the death ray and walk away. Especially as Necron players Use the death ray as a 360 degree firing solution. They are a threat to my army not my hell drake. I use my helldrakes to protect my scoring units, not itself.

Martel732 wrote:
When do you ever see just one Vendetta? 3 Vendettas can fry a helldrake a turn, and only cost as much as 2 helldrakes. I see this happen constantly where I play. The Vendetta (not singular) in general is a hard counter to the Helldrake. They are both significantly undercosted. With the FAQ ruling, the Helldrake needs to be pushing LR points.

Whenever do you see six Vendettas? And still you're talking aboutn a 3 on 1 comparsion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

cerbrus2 wrote:
Im more worried about the other fliers hitting my Troops and Tanks, Not my helldrake. I can and have easily handled two doom scyths with 1 helldrake I only ever use 1 helldrake. If i didnt start vector striking and shooting my Auto cannon at the DoomScths. i would not have maney Tanks or men left for that matter. Being as there is not much in the way that can take a shot from the death ray and walk away. Especially as Necron players Use the death ray as a 360 degree firing solution. They are a threat to my army not my hell drake. I use my helldrakes to protect my scoring units, not itself.

Yay! This guy gets it. It's not the issue of the flyer hitting the Heldrake it is the issue of the Heldrake hitting the enemy flyer.

It's not like there's some rule saying that the Vendettas much killing the Helldrakes in one turn. 3 Vendettas can engage 2 helldrakes just fine. I see it happen all the time.

 mercer wrote:

reaper with no name wrote:


Vendettas are one of (if not the only) cost-effective method of neutralizing a Heldrake. Vendettas are so stupidly powerful that they will trash you no matter what weapon you put on your Heldrake. So, there's no point in worrying about them because you can't stop them anyway.

Heldrakes "deal" with other fliers the same way Land Raiders "deal" with plasma guns; they ignore them.

The thing you seem to be not getting is that Heldrakes are so tough to kill that most fliers (statistically speaking) cannot put a dent into them (the Vendetta, again, being an exception). Having a Heldrake just to shoot enemy fliers is like having a Land Raider dedicated to shooting guys who fire plasma guns at your other Land Raiders. It's a complete waste of points. You know how much damage a LC/MM GK Stormraven will statistically inflict per turn on a Heldrake?

0.65

That's right, a 205 point flier (and one of the better ones out there, mind you) isn't worth a damn against a Heldrake.

Every turn your Heldrake spends shooting at other fliers is a wasted turn, because those fliers aren't a threat to it. The only way they can take a significant bite out of you is by overwhelming you with sheer numbers.

But guess what? Not only will a single hades autocannon not help you against that (it can only shoot at one flier per turn, and in our scenario there are about 6 shooting at you), but fielding that many fliers would require going lighter on troops. So, in this scenario, you lose one more Heldrake than usual, but since you need to burn fewer targets to win, it still works out in your favor.

No matter how you slice it, a single skyfire hades autocannon is not worth 175 points and a FA slot. You're giving up what you're great at to be slightly less terrible at something you're going to suck at no matter what you do.

And as for cracking transports, you have vector strikes and the entire rest of your army to do that. I'm sure you can figure something out.

Sorry, dude, but I have to totally disagree with you. Sure Vendettas are under costed and that's because they are costed as skimmers and sure they are powerful, triple lascannons for the win, however they will not always trash a Heldrake. First they will hit with 2,25 shots after twin-linked goodness, and they then have a 1.51 chance of doing something - the heldrake has 0.50 chance of saving this damage. If you shake or stun it then the Heldrake can save against it, so really you're going to need a 5+ to trash the Heldrake as you put it.

I am not worried about Vendettas. You keep mentioning Vendettas all the time. I am concerned about flyers in general, which the Heldrake with vector strikes (getting 3 on average) and using the hades and strip the Vendetta of two hull points - the Heldrake is doing a lot better job and taking down the Vendetta than the Vendetta is taking down the Heldrake, considering you said it will trash it...

No, you cannot ignore enemy flyers or they will just carry on dishing out the dirt. It's not the case of the enemy flyers being a threat to the Heldrake it is the case of the flyers being a threat to my army and I need some way of dealing with them, you are not understanding my point on that. And your example of the Land Raider firing at plasma guns is totally incorrect and a wrong example. I have clearly explained that the Heldrake can take off two hull points of a Vendetta while the Vendetta doesn't have awesome chances of taking out a Heldrake. I would also like to know where have six Vendettas come from? Talk about weighting the arguement in your favour - six Vendettas vs a single Heldrake, lol .

At the end of the day if you do not think the hades is worth then that's your opinion, though if you're going to backup your arguement you need to do a fair comparsion and not do six Vendettas vs one flyer, six Vendettas would destroy any flyer so that's a stupid comparsion. Also you need to get your info right as a Vendetta has very slim chances of taking out a Heldrake.

Who said anything about 6 Vendettas?

I mean, against IG primaries, sure, but against anyone else, you won't be seeing that.

I said that the only effective way for armies with weaker fliers to take down a Heldrake is with lots of fliers. So it's not 6 Vendettas, it's 6 Nightscythes or something of the sort. And again, a hadesdrake is not effective against that many fliers. You would have to kill one each turn, and that's just not going to happen with any sort of regularity.

Assuming you successfully vector strike the Vendetta (positioning matters, after all), congratulations, you inflicted 2 hull points. Too bad the enemy has at least two vendettas which will inflict that right back on you. And two Vendettas have more hull points than your lone Hadesdrake. Are you going to pull the baledrakes away from their duty to help out? Wonderful, that's exactly what your enemy wants. He wants your Heldrakes to be doing literally anything except burning and vector striking his ground forces.

And you could have just had Havocs take those 2 HPs off of the Vendettas, leaving room for another Baledrake.

You seem to be positing the idea that the enemy is going to have their fliers ignore your heldrakes and just focus on taking out your ground forces. Good. You want him to do that, because then it becomes a game of who can trash the other player's ground game better. Guess what? Baledrakes win that game. With the modern metagame promoting larger armies (thanks in large part to the Heldrake), most fliers simply don't kill enough to force a victory (sure, they can blow up a rhino easily enough, but that's not going to win the game; killing handfuls of troops will).

Baledrakes do kill enough to force victories.

Heldrakes protect their ground forces by providing such a massive threat to the enemy ground forces that the only way the non-baledrake player can expect to win is by having his fliers shoot at the baledrakes and hope they manage to kill enough of them to save his ground game.

Once again, a single hadesdrake will not do this. It does not have enough offensive punch to efficiently kill multiple enemy fliers. It does not produce the threat to the enemy ground game necessary to force the opposing player's fliers to shoot at it. By taking it, you weaken your dominance of the ground game, which allows more of the enemy's fliers to shoot at your ground units instead of your fliers.

In other words, by taking a hadesdrake instead of a baledrake, you actually make your defense against other fliers worse, because with one less baledrake to worry about, one of the the enemy nightscythes or stormravens or what have you (which would normally be on "kill heldrake duty" with all the other fliers) can decide "eh, the others have this under control, and the hadesdrake isn't hurting me too much, so I'll go shoot that rhino over there".

Basically, you're undercutting your own strategy.

You said there are six flyers in your scenario shooting at the Heldrake. Your scenario was using a Vendetta, hence six Vendettas.

Once again, you're talking multiple Vendettas against a single Heldrake, in this case you're taking about three (one which just got hit by vector strike) and then another two. So once again you're making an unfair comparsion.

I have never said at all about the enemy flyers attacking my own ground forces. This entire post is about Heldrakes dealing with enemy flyers - nothing to do with ground forces at all. For some reason you keep talking about ground forces and are missing the point about anti air.

As I have said several times, the baleflamer is excellent for anti infantry. What I want is anti air and the baleflamer cannot do that. So while the Baledrake is shooting enemy ground forces what exactly of mine is shooting at the enemy flyers? You still haven't given an answer to this and continously ignore this question. You just talk about the Hadesdrakes saying it isn't good at taking out Vendettas (when I have told you it will kill one with average vector strike rolls) and just keep repeating about multiple Vendettas or other flyers all time vs a single Heldrake and do not offer any other anti air solutions.

So you can run scenarios all day long and tell me about Baledrakes attacking ground forces and enemy flyers going after the Baledrake etc etc but I still need something to deal with those enemy flyers no matter what they are shooting at - if they are shooting at my more valuable Baledrake (which is more valuable according to you because Baledrakes wins victories) then I need a method to stop those enemy flyers. If Baledrakes get me victories then I need them alive, not dead, yes? So I am not going to let a billion Vendettas or whatever else shoot my Heldrakes up and just bend over and take it. All you seem to be talking about is how pimp the Baledrake is at anti infantry and totally ignoring my question about the anti air - if enemy flyers are shooting at my Baledrake and that wins me victories, then I need to stop those enemy flyers runing my chances of victory, yes? Lets say I stick with the baleflamers, so tell me how am I going to deal with three or six Vendettas then?

I am bored now anyway. You do not seem to be getting the point about the required anti air and still haven't answered my question or suggested another source of anti air. If you do not like Heldrakes with hades then that's your opinion and that's fine.

Take an aegis if you wanna autocannon anti air.

The baleflamer is the only option in my opinion.

I have had a lot of success running Heldrakes with Hades Autocannons. They are pretty reliable at popping flyers. I read your statement above and this is the only divergence--once the Hades-drake has popped flyers, it is also very useful against transports and light tanks.

If you do not want to dedicate the drake to anti-flyer, I assault cannon Havocs put out a high rate of fire that can deal with flyers somewhat reliably. The ADL quad-gun is always an option as well.

The codex has better options to deal with anything youd ever take a hades autocannon on it for.

If your giving your helldrake an autocannon to fill a gap imho youve done your list wrong.

Why do you care about other fliers? Except other helldrakes? What other flier warrants take the *baleflamer* off your drake?

Please bring all the helldrakes to my table with autocannons that you like. Shoot down my Stormraven; I don't care, because you already nerfed the unit I brought the Stormraven for in the first place.

As a Daemon player, the Hades Autocannon on a Heldrake is looking to be a better deal for me.

I've no problem with anti-infantry so the Baleflamer isn't as needed, though I've no way to actually deal with other flyers other than Bloodletters on a Lascannon.

A prescienced, Autocannon Heldrake is pretty nice though and it supports my other Flying Monsters just as well without providing too big of a threat.

Is it possible to magnetize the weapon in the head so you can swap and use both?