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I have a problem with baleflamers. Let me explain.

I play in a local environment that, while friendly, is competitive. Since the new Chaos codex has come out, I play against Chaos more than any other army. Because of this, my opponents have been using Heldrakes extensively. I'm at the point now where it's not uncommon for them to field 2 of these in a normal 1850 game. One I can deal with, but two? This is getting to be a problem for me.

I have three armies that I run: Grey Knights, Necrons, and Blood Angels. My latest army that I have been fielding is the following:

Bastion with Icarus Lascannon
Coteaz on top with three Jokaeros and 3 Acolytes

Psyker Inquisitor inside with three plasma cannon servitors and 2 Acolytes

2x 10 GKSS with 2 Psycannons in a Rhino

2x Dreadknight with Greatsword and Incinerator and teleporter

Psyfledread

5x Terminators with Psycannon

Overall, this list has been working pretty well for me. I played against a new guy who used two Heldrakes in his list on the Relic mission, and lost. I attribute the loss mostly to mistakes that I made which I think I can improve my play on, but it still really got to me how much damage his heldrakes were able to do to my army. I actually finished the game with the Relic inside my Bastion, but he flamed all my troops to death and won because he had first blood and slay the warlord.

I'm open to suggestions to change my list, but I really would like suggestions for dealing with Heldrake spam. I looooove my coteaz with his unit that has 4 twin linked lascannons, and the three twin linked plasma cannons below him are super effective. But these damn heldrakes just chew through my troops, and it's starting to drive me insane.

I've done the math, and it takes a ludicrous amount of Psyfledread shots to put one of these turkeys down....same thing for lascannon shots. It's almost not worth even shooting at them, but they kill 3-7 guys on every flame shot.

They are AV 10 in the back. A twin linked tesla cannon up the poop shoot puts mine down fairly reliably.

More Terminators. Heldrakes are full of fail against 2+ saves. Stormravens with Cyclones or Multi-Meltas, or those Blood Missile things should also be pretty good gainst them!

1 Stormraven with MM/ASC will eat two drakes.

can corteza fire the lascannon twice. once with normal intercept and once with "ive been expecting you?"

but yes, AV12 fliers are hard to deal with. Vendettas aside from being awesome do it really well though.

 Exergy wrote:
can corteza fire the lascannon twice. once with normal intercept and once with "ive been expecting you?"

but yes, AV12 fliers are hard to deal with. Vendettas aside from being awesome do it really well though.

Technically he could but he has to be within 12" of the spot on the table edge that the helldrake comes in from. Coteaz's ability only really works on DS units, not so much from units coming in from their own table edge.

As a Chaos player and heldrake enthusiast, let me tell you: they don't die reliably. I only run one, he is around for the final roll of the dice in just about every game. I also know people who play 3 as part of their armies, and people get so caught up in trying to deal with the dragon-thingy they lose to the units on the ground.

The big thing Heldrakes fear is skyfire, anytime someone can accurately target him it makes a big difference. They just don't have the armor to stand up to much.

The trouble is, a good round of shooting usually takes off 1 or 2 hull points. Heldrakes have 3 plus It Will Not Die. Statistically average rolling means they are getting back a hull point every third turn, and there are no guarantees you are going to be able to penetrate their armor.

Most armies have 1 or 2 units with skyfire and it is not that hard to get to them with a vector strike, a baleflamer or infantry. Good Chaos players know how to exploit this - every turn you are shooting at a Heldrake using a unit without Skyfire means you are wasting a lot of shots. They will position Heldrakes on the board to make sure this happens.

The best thing to do against a Heldrake, IMHO, is wipe out everything on the ground before you pay attention to it. It has one gun capable of 4 shots or one flamer, plus it can vector strike. These attacks do little against TEQ and the like, and cause less than 2 wounds average against MEQ. It's not like they are going to destroy your forces, but there are a lot of other Chaos units who can. Seriously, most players use them as bullet magnets for opponents who don't bring capable AA units, they don't actually do that much compared to Havocs, Obliterators, Bikers, Noise Marines, Daemon Princes, etc - you know, the things you should be watching for.

 techsoldaten wrote:
As a Chaos player and heldrake enthusiast, let me tell you: they don't die reliably. I only run one, he is around for the final roll of the dice in just about every game. I also know people who play 3 as part of their armies, and people get so caught up in trying to deal with the dragon-thingy they lose to the units on the ground.

The big thing Heldrakes fear is skyfire, anytime someone can accurately target him it makes a big difference. They just don't have the armor to stand up to much.

The trouble is, a good round of shooting usually takes off 1 or 2 hull points. Heldrakes have 3 plus It Will Not Die. Statistically average rolling means they are getting back a hull point every third turn, and there are no guarantees you are going to be able to penetrate their armor.

Most armies have 1 or 2 units with skyfire and it is not that hard to get to them with a vector strike, a baleflamer or infantry. Good Chaos players know how to exploit this - every turn you are shooting at a Heldrake using a unit without Skyfire means you are wasting a lot of shots. They will position Heldrakes on the board to make sure this happens.

The best thing to do against a Heldrake, IMHO, is wipe out everything on the ground before you pay attention to it. It has one gun capable of 4 shots or one flamer, plus it can vector strike. These attacks do little against TEQ and the like, and cause less than 2 wounds average against MEQ. It's not like they are going to destroy your forces, but there are a lot of other Chaos units who can. Seriously, most players use them as bullet magnets for opponents who don't bring capable AA units, they don't actually do that much compared to Havocs, Obliterators, Bikers, Noise Marines, Daemon Princes, etc - you know, the things you should be watching for.

Most armies have sky fire stuff, but what about Dark Elder? I have a hard time with helldrakes as well. I have a razorwing that can kill flyers, sure, but an aegis line doesn't work well with dark elder strategy, and taking another plane would cut down on my precious heavy support slots.

Like I said, find a way to focus on the more dangerous stuff swarming around on the ground.

People's response to a Heldrake is a little irrational. The model is really just about the same a havoc squad with 2 autocannons / a Terminator with a Heavy Flamer that just happens to fly. Sure, he can do a vector strike but it's not like that causes a lot of wounds on average. In my armies at least, there are always much bigger threats on the board and most of them are just as mobile.

It doesn't seem to matter to opponents. As soon as he is within 24 inches, they will shoot at him with boys, MEQ, IG, firewarriors, eldar, Tyranid things, anything that has guns and at least a 16% chance of hitting and an 8% chance of penetrating. I have seen people fire at him with 6 units the same turn, only to have 2 of them get charged by MoN bikers and another 2 shot up by stationary Noise Marines the next turn. It's self-defeating - every time they take a low-percentage shot at the Heldrake they are losing troops.

I mean, I also like to run lascannon havocs and preds. The Heldrake will get target priority over them even though he can't one-shot a vehicle or score wounds with no saves. You would think someone would look at the board and say, hrm, there's 2 things here, perhaps I should focus on the tougher one.

For a good Chaos player, the Heldrake is the best kind of cover you can get. I see him as nothing but a way to draw fire while my troops close in. If there are any one-shot solutions for dealing with him, fine, but mine never really ever loses that last hull point.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Like I said, find a way to focus on the more dangerous stuff swarming around on the ground.

People's response to a Heldrake is a little irrational. The model is really just about the same a havoc squad with 2 autocannons / a Terminator with a Heavy Flamer that just happens to fly. Sure, he can do a vector strike but it's not like that causes a lot of wounds on average. In my armies at least, there are always much bigger threats on the board and most of them are just as mobile.

It doesn't seem to matter to opponents. As soon as he is within 24 inches, they will shoot at him with boys, MEQ, IG, firewarriors, eldar, Tyranid things, anything that has guns and at least a 16% chance of hitting and an 8% chance of penetrating. I have seen people fire at him with 6 units the same turn, only to have 2 of them get charged by MoN bikers and another 2 shot up by stationary Noise Marines the next turn. It's self-defeating - every time they take a low-percentage shot at the Heldrake they are losing troops.

I mean, I also like to run lascannon havocs and preds. The Heldrake will get target priority over them even though he can't one-shot a vehicle or score wounds with no saves. You would think someone would look at the board and say, hrm, there's 2 things here, perhaps I should focus on the tougher one.

For a good Chaos player, the Heldrake is the best kind of cover you can get. I see him as nothing but a way to draw fire while my troops close in. If there are any one-shot solutions for dealing with him, fine, but mine never really ever loses that last hull point.

I agree, people think they are scary. It's the way they do their damage and the fear that a torrent flame template can cause.
A heldrake does its damage over 2-3 shots in a game. It might only get 1, it will likely get 2, it might get 3. It will never get 6. A defiler on the other hand(or LRBT/Basalisk) does its damage every turn it is alive. In one turn the helturkey might do more damage, but in the long run a defiler will likely do more.

There are a lot of situations where a torrent template can get a LOT of models. They dont show up often, but they do happen and when they do, everyone will remember them. Flame templates dont miss, which reduces the chance they will wiff. This is very scary. There are a lot of scary things, firedragons/meltasternguard run up and shot 5 melta/fusion shots at your big expensive tank(very scary) but if you play this game often enough you will note that one time when big scary melta squad comes up and then wiffs completely with 0-1 hit and then fails to pen or if it pens is negated by cover or blows off a storm bolter. A heldrake on the other hand, never misses, rarely fails to wound, and doesnt allow 3+ saves or cover. It has the movement to choose it's target and thus it seems very scary. Rarely will your expensive bunched up mech squad see the helturkey fail to do devistating damage to them.

well its not just the drakes flamer doing damage that vector stike is quite useful ive found in downing other fliers and taking out tanks while flaming troops to death.

Flyers often have weaker armor, meaning even weaker weapons have a chance of doing something. Even a small chance will get people to try, hoping for that one lucky shot....
If you have nothing with skyfire, and feel you must make an attemp on the flyer's life, my reccomend action is to fire only with weapons that can pen and either has a good number of shots or is twin linked. Everything else should continue to blast at what's on the ground.
It's going to hurt when those few shots miss and the torrent gets to flame you again, but at least fewer shots were wasted.

 Overlord Zerrtin wrote:
well its not just the drakes flamer doing damage that vector stike is quite useful ive found in downing other fliers and taking out tanks while flaming troops to death.

You know what? That's the exception. Most often they just fly around, do 1 or 2 wounds a round, and eventually fly off the board because they were moving too fast.

My CSMs get lucky every once in a while, roll all 5s and 6s when they are shooting something up. That's not how they perform all the time. My havocs, sometimes they can't a damn thing with their lascannons. I take them because I know they will be good next time.

Heldrakes, their mean is not very tough. Its everything else I use to fight you with.

What I would do if you have the models, is run a stormraven, then A he wont have any sky fire to do destroy it and B you'll be able to destroy his drake easily. Also, you could put one of those things on the bastion that makes you reroll reserve rolls to make sure that your flyer comes in second

They are pretty damn scary when used right, makes a chaos player too confident, i once got beautifully lucky and killed two with my SR in the same turn! but that asideive found the best way around them with a BF is of course either a rival flyer vector strike on a SR is just not that scary or just do your best to have everything in combat, love seeing a helldrake zipping round with nothing to shoot, especially if you take the fight to their deployment zone, they only usually get 2-3 shots per game anyway

 Fafnir13 wrote:
Flyers often have weaker armor, meaning even weaker weapons have a chance of doing something. Even a small chance will get people to try, hoping for that one lucky shot....
If you have nothing with skyfire, and feel you must make an attemp on the flyer's life, my reccomend action is to fire only with weapons that can pen and either has a good number of shots or is twin linked. Everything else should continue to blast at what's on the ground.
It's going to hurt when those few shots miss and the torrent gets to flame you again, but at least fewer shots were wasted.

Not sure if necrons are different but I know with my wolves I can't split fire like that in a normal squad. If I shot at it with one grey hunter I'd have to shoot with all because only my long fangs have fire control while their sgt is alive

Was actually talking about separate units, but I can see where the confusion would come from.