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Autocannon Havocs usually do the trick. Two units of them are common place in most lists anyway.

I think you can only take the Hellblade if you're playing Chaos Renegades. Though I could be wrong. And I've only played 2 1000 point games against a friend with 2 fliers, and in one I ignored them and it wasn't the worst thing ever, but they were pretty frustrating. The next game I brought a bastion with an autocannon (the store had one for terrain, I didn't own one ) and a squad of havocs with a lascannon, 2 autocannons, and a ML with Flakk missiles, and took them down. It could've been a small bit of lucky rolling, since the lascannon did hit IIRC, but that seemed like it would work.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Autocannon Havocs usually do the trick. Two units of them are common place in most lists anyway.

Explain to me why this is better than flakk missiles?

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Autocannon Havocs usually do the trick. Two units of them are common place in most lists anyway.

Explain to me why this is better than flakk missiles?

Cost primarily.
For pure AA, Flakks win with twice as many hits on average as ACs but ACs are 33% cheaper.

And two units of them is cheaper than one squad of flakk havocs@

Again, thanks a lot for all the feedback!
As to the poster who suggested the Firestorm Redoubt, I'm not sure if I can justify the cost to myself. That, and it seems too much of a static defense. Same could be said for ADL with a quad gun. I also don't plan on taking any units from ForgeWorld. I don't have anything against my opponents for using it, but I myself won't as of right now. Allies, on the other hand, I could possibly see using.

Are you aware the firestorm redoubt is stock GW? It has nothing to do with FW.

Yes, I am aware of this. Someone here mentioned using Hellblades, which are from Forge World. I don't plan on using that.

But Hell Blades are pretty!

+1 for the Hadesfiend. It wrecks fliers and is good against ground based targets as well. I'd stay away from the flakk missles...way too expensive for a few S7 hits. Though honestly, I've never used them. the hefty price tag has always been a deal breaker for me. Also the Icarus in the ADL is a good and cheaper option then the quad gun. when i'm not shooting flyers, the champ can snipe individuals with it.

 Ailaros wrote:

hippesthippo wrote:Ignoring fliers usually doesn't work unless you have a strong horde element. Why do you think the aforementioned Heldrake is so good?

Let's say, for a moment, that the only Sv3+ models you have are on regular CSM. And let's say that you know what displacement means, so a bale flamer hits only 4 marines per shot, and let's say that the helldrake gets a whopping 5 shots (comes on the board as soon as it can, never has to fly off for some reason, and doesn't get shot down or lose a weapon). That's 20 hits in this awful scenario, which leads to 221 points killed.

... that's not very much, given the cost of the helldrake. Put the helldrake into a world where you can shoot at it, and it might need to drive off the board once or twice, or the game ends on turn 5, and suddenly, in a more realistic scenario, the helldrake isn't even making its points back. Against its primary target.

And that's still with a pretty much "ignore it" scenario. If you take something that's actually good at killing fliers, even just one or two things, and that hell turkey is going to be a burden on your opponent's list, not a boon.

And that's ignoring all the other benefits to ignoring them...

You're forgetting the Helldrake will also vector strike. On average it's 3 S7 AP3 autohits per turn (on side armor), more than enough to blow up one or two light armored vehicles/flyers/walkers (after all you just need a lucky 6 after a penetrating hit, not considering that daemonforge could help with glancing them to death).
Also usefull to throw a couple of wounds at all but T10 MCs. Well, after all with a bit of luck 3 S7 AP3 shot can be painful for anything that has not at least AV13 as side armor...

If you let 2 helldrakes kill indisturbed they will do much more than earn their points back.

However I do agree with you that in many cases (flyers specifically armed as anti-vehicles) you can just ignore them, CSM have plenty of options to kill stuff once you obtain battlefield domain, even without tanks of their own.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Autocannon Havocs usually do the trick. Two units of them are common place in most lists anyway.

Explain to me why this is better than flakk missiles?

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
And two units of them is cheaper than one squad of flakk havocs@

Easy, general strategy is why. Even when you are looking for your anti-air options, you are still building a list to take on everything. Taking a unit that fits a sole purpose is all fine and dandy until they face an army without the one thing you tooled them for. Now Flakk Havocs are fine in this regard as they have normal missiles too, but they are 175pts, whereas those Autocannon Havocs are 115pts. In fact two units of the AutoHavocs even aren't much more than a single squad of Flakks.

Moreover, against everything that isn't a flyer, in other words the majority of units you will face, the Autocannons are statistically better. And against flyers they still aren't too shabby either, and get enough hits on average to at least make the opponent consider jinking, which is usually all you need for a turn. There's also the fact that Flakks still aren't very good against flyers, as those 4 shots land you a measily 2.6 S7 hits on average, which isn't going to do much in the land of AV12 flyers like Ravens and Drakes. So the better strategic option is to take the cheaper unit that can do it all, doing most of it better and one thing a little bit worse.

The problem is even over a year into 6th edition people still automatically think you need Skyfire to take on flyers.

This is part of the reason I take a Hadesfiend in my army.
Throw enough shots into the air with a decent S and you'll knock something down eventually.

I like obliterators myself.

They're certainly useful against all ground targets and then if you hang out mid board you can usually be within range of twin linked melta guns or twin linked plasma.

The melta will make certain that if you get a hit you're going to take the flyer down. With autocannons or flakk missiles you still need to roll a 5 to glance a heldrake.

Yup, both follow the same logic as taking AutoHavocs.

Playing Devil's advocate, is it likely to ever have a scenario where Flakk missiles are worth the added price?

Necron Bakery?
Daemon Flying Circus?

Personally, I use a Forgefiend with the Hades Autocannons equiped. You get eight shots so you have a pretty solid chance at hitting a flier.