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So I hate the look of the Hell Drake model. Its huge and will take up half a tray in my case, and I don't like it look with my army. I play 1k Sons and the giant dragon just doesn't feel right, maybe if it was a bird, but never the less. I'm looking into the Hell Blade as an alternative.

The Hell Drake has better everything just about, but I run into the question of, how big of a difference will the 55 points make? Is the Hell Blade even viable in comparison? Thoughts on the matter are welcome.

I personally am taking both using the hellblade as anti air support and the drake as anti meq and for vector striking tanks or fliers if necessary. Hope this is some help to you.

Helldrake wins out bigtime imo.
Maybe some kind of fantasy dragon, or conversion is in order?

I would have thought that in a Tzeentchy army a daemon dragon machine would fit in quite nicely... maybe convert the head to give it a LoC style bird head?

is the hellblade a FW model ?

Heldrake wins, IMHO, unless you are specifically trying to save points and need AA capability. The Hellblade is one of the best AA options we have (allies notwithstanding) for the points, but the Heldrake is much tougher with a higher AV, 5+ invul and IWND. The 'drake can be kitted for AA as well, but IMHO is better with a baleflamer.

The 'blade can be useful, but I think that if you're going to use up a FA slot on a Flyer then it might as well be a 'drake.

Crimson-King2120 wrote:
is the hellblade a FW model ?

Yep. Latest rules are in Imperial Armour: Aeronautica.

Helldrake. Much more survivable and better at AA, even if it isnt great at that. Reaper autocannons, even 2 of them just isnt enough. AV10 and 2 hull points just isnt enough either.

IMHO they really dropped the ball on the new chaos codex. Why they nerfed reaper autocannons is beyond me. The only units that can take it are: Termiators(for 25 points!) Defilers(195 points now) Hellbrute and the Hellblade

for loyalist terminators you can have a assault cannon with twice the shots, one less strength, 12 less range and rending for 5 more points or two missile launchers with better strength, AP, range and a frag option for 5 more points. GK termites can have a psycannon with twice the shots, rending and the same strength for the same cost.

They use to be 48" range, I think if they were going to change them to 36" range they should have upped them to Heavy 3. That would have made them more on par with cyclones and assault cannons, not as good but still in the same ballpark.

Reaper Autocannons were 36" in the 4th ed book. I'm looking at the statline right now.

yes, the reaper didn't change but they stayed just as expensive throughout & where they were in the 4th ed book folks chose not to take them because they were overcosted as gak. I guess GW thinks that with the advent of hull points a 2 shot TL S7 weapon is worth 25 points...

The big change is that Helbrutes used to be able to take TL autocannons, now they're just RAC for the same price.....

as a noise marine player who used (2) "helbruteS" with TLAC I can say I'm not smiling....

A Helbrute is 5 points cheaper than the older Chaos Dreadnought, which was 110 points with a TLAC. In addition, the Chaos Dreadnought could still fire at friendlies, nor did it ignore Shaken and Stunned. Yes, it was FAQed to fire only in its weapon arcs for Crazed, but it could still fire at friendlies.

The fact that the Helbrute can no longer fire at friendlies at all, it can essentially never stop firing bar no Weapon Destroyed results or just being dead, and get buffs just from receiving damage means that he got buffed across the board.

Perhaps it is of note: I am really looking into it for the AA capability, infantry are pretty much demolished by my rhino/rubric list; however, I find it increasingly difficult to deal with fliers as most of my guns are 24" and even with a skyfire nexus I can't hit them.

Are these the rules for the Hell Blade? If so, they shouldn't be posted here. If they are of your own invention, you should have these is proposed rules...

Even for AA, a hades autocannon wins out imo. The hellblade statistically should get 3 hits, the hades should get 2, but S8 vs S7 means you have better chances against hard fliers like SR's or valk/vendettas. Then throw in the extra survivability & vector strikes, I think the helldrake will be able to contribute more against lists with no aircraft whilst still being able to perform in a AA role.

Three S7 hits and 2 S8 hits provide exactly the same average number of penetrating hits against an AV12 model. Specifically 1. The higher number of hits also make the Hellblade on average more effective against lower armoured aircraft as well.

The Hellblade is more of a glass cannon, but if what I primarily wanted was an effective AA option I'd take the Hellblade over the Drake. Especially if I could spare the points to get two in, which is easier to do with the Hellblade than the Heldrake.

EDIT: Actually, my math is right but not for what I was intending to calculate. Above is the number of damage results total, not penetrating hits. The S7 and S8 produce the same average number of results, but the S8 is going to skew towards penetrating hits.

Could you just use the talon as a count as dragon? Looks much nicer.

And what about the chaos bomber from FW? How does that one stack up? The hell blade I believe?

The Blade is the fighter, the talon is the bomber. The talon is, IMO, the best flier availble to chaos. It can drop up to 8 bombs that are str 6 blasts per game. Has twin linked lascannon, and a reaper autocannon. Its just pretty pricey at 185pts

compared to the heldrake at 170? 15 points for a bunch of bombs bs 4?? and well an awesome model. Only issue is it is FW and costs $$$

Then again, i like vektor striking.