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Because Drakes are such an issue, and so common, I decided to write an article about countering them. Each army has some options, but battling Drakes takes a combination of list building and good movement.

Check it out if you are interested.

http://rhetorical40k.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/tactics-what-will-you-do-about-drakes/

I think more people should consider taking a hadesdrake instead of the baledrake. At a certain point, you saturate infantry killing need of your army, so adding some tank and flyer busting power couldn't hurt. You still retain vector strikes if you REALLY need to kill MEQs.

I wish people started to consider the Hadesdrake too...mainly because I want to face less Baledrakes

Seriously though, this is terrible advice. Mech has died down so much. The Baleflamer Helldrake is one of the best units in the game. The ability to threaten most troop choices anywhere on the board, wounding on 2's, ignoring all but 2+ saves, and ignoring cover is incredible. There is no reason to ever consider the Hades Autocannon.

I'm not discounting the power of the baledrake. It's probably one of a handful of models keeping Chaos competitive.

My advice was more based on the idea that once you have a pair of baledrakes, adding a hadesdrake if you really need the added AA firepower and didn't want to use allies, could be more useful than a third template.

I think that the easy answer for the third FA slot roughly the same amount of points is a unit of Nurgle Spawn. That unit is almost as incredible as the Drake, especially when buffed up with powers.