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Going to be fighting a Chaos player tomorrow and am worried that he will be bringing multiple Heldrakes. I've never played against one before, so not really sure what to expect. I am hestitent to take a defense line, because I really don't have the 100 points for it. I am thinking a couple of Flakk missiles, but not sure if that would be enough if there are 2 or even 3 on the field. Thoughts or suggestions would be awesome.

Land Raiders make you immune and TL Lascannons are decent AA.

Rifleman Dreads.
Predators.
Massed melta or plasma.
Assault Cannons.

Anything S6+ with multiple shots or twin linked.

Don't forget the rear is AV10.

Say to him if he wants helldrakes you want to use dogfight rules then bring out your real or proxied nephillim.

Don't underestimate black knights. TL-plasmaguns on a bunch of bikers will score hits and bring it down.

DA have access to a fair amount of flakk in their codex right down to a 5 man tac squad.

That said, it's just one model, and if you are running deathwing you can laugh as you ignore it.

Well, what type of Dark Angels are you playing?

i don't play dark angels, but I do play chaos,a nd I have run my double dragon list against a few dark angel players.

Deathwing shrugged off the hits like champs.

Standard green marines died like any other space marine

Ravenwing was interesting. the first two games he got slaughtered. However, after that he completely changed his tactic. he just bullrushed me before they came on. His entire army was pretty much in close combat the entire game, making my drakes next to worthless. Wasn't a bad way to go. Depends on the rest of the list though, he may want you in close combat like that.

Mostly running with Green Wing. Also what is the call on Deathwing Knights, worth it or not good enough for what they cost?

Razakil wrote:
Mostly running with Green Wing. Also what is the call on Deathwing Knights, worth it or not good enough for what they cost?

I feel like they're not worth the extra points over standard DW.

That said, I'm a Chaos player and not a DA player and we have weak Terminators anyway.

There are two options I look to when I play helldrakes
1) Deathwing
2) ML Devastators with Librarian + PFG, and prescience your way to a win.

What's PFG? Because krak missiles and flakk missiles kinda suck vs helldrakes.

PFG is Power Field Generator (the 4+ Invulnerable save within 3"). Drop a couple squads of DW with Cyclone Missile Launchers behind the Helldrake and fry that ass! My personal favorite is the Ravenwing Command Squad with Apothecary to shoot down Helldrakes. That much twin linked plasma will take out a lot of things. The thing with the Helldrake is that it will vaporize most MEQ units before you even get to shoot it down due to the Strength 7 AP 3 template.

I use DA and I have to fight against chaos pretty often. Trust me when I say get the Aegis w/quad gun. Interceptor is awesome if you pull it off, otherwise you'll get plenty of shots at it.

I suggest either putting a librarian w/ PFG with some tac marines on it, or azreal.

Death Knights in a landraider is a great beatstick, and smite is usually enough to kill anything, remember- all their weapons have bane of the traitor-which lowers the ap vs chaos.

I think I am just going to cave in and make room for the ADL with the Quad-Gun. Put a Dev Squad with Flakk on it, because I know if he is going to be using a Heldrake it will be more than 1. Kind of a large points dump. But if he brings them it should give me enough shots in the air to take them down, and if not it will still give me enough fire power to make up for the points I hope. Thank you all of the advice, it was all very helpful.

FW hyperios automated guns. Those are excellent and very easy to make if you have any cyclone MLs or typhoons MLs lying about. They even make sense as they are DS in according to fluff. (and can be DS in using rules from IA12)

Deathwing Knights are only good with a LR (which makes them amazing with Ezekiel or a Chappy).

Could you use a Mortis Dread? One of those with TL-LCs will be great, both for AA and AT.

Have you and your opponent agreed to use tailored lists?

use pure deathwings

Razakil wrote:
Going to be fighting a Chaos player tomorrow and am worried that he will be bringing multiple Heldrakes. I've never played against one before, so not really sure what to expect. I am hestitent to take a defense line, because I really don't have the 100 points for it. I am thinking a couple of Flakk missiles, but not sure if that would be enough if there are 2 or even 3 on the field. Thoughts or suggestions would be awesome.

you dont want to use a 100 point adl for 4 twin linked skyfire str 7 shots but you want to spend 25 points per missile launcher for 1 str7 shot? Doesnt make sense to me.
A bastion is only 25 points more than an ADL and will give you clear LOS to the helturkey and somewhat protect your from the flamer and completely from the VS.

I would take a unit of Deathwing with a CML. Hold in reserve and then DS behind the helturkey. A bunch of twinlinked str4 storm bolters and 2 TL krak missiles combinded with the quad gun should help you down one. The terminators can then have fun in the back field hopefully chopping up CSM.

Black Knights can work, but they can also die in a ball of flame. I know if I was running a helturkey I would kill those tasty black knights first.

Pretty sound advice in the thread. DW, DWK and LRs are all pretty good answers to the current Chaos meta which is hell drakes and Autocannons.

If you have the points and the money, I would reccommend the mortis contemptor dread as someone above me has already said.
I run 2 with my ravenwing forces just for situations like this. kheres assault cannons are the way to go vs helldrakes IMO, although of course twin linked lascannons could do it at a better range.
The great thing with helldrakes is they want to be close to vector and flame, so the usual 24 range disadvantage of the kheres guns are reduced substantially, letting you make a potentially 'safe' no fly area in the middle of the board.
(Having first turn is fantastic with this tactic, second turn not so much, as you really do need to move the dreads into centre field, and they lose skyfire if they move).
Still one of the best AA choices we have.

Big Blind Bill wrote:
If you have the points and the money, I would reccommend the mortis contemptor dread as someone above me has already said.
I run 2 with my ravenwing forces just for situations like this. kheres assault cannons are the way to go vs helldrakes IMO, although of course twin linked lascannons could do it at a better range.
The great thing with helldrakes is they want to be close to vector and flame, so the usual 24 range disadvantage of the kheres guns are reduced substantially, letting you make a potentially 'safe' no fly area in the middle of the board.
(Having first turn is fantastic with this tactic, second turn not so much, as you really do need to move the dreads into centre field, and they lose skyfire if they move).
Still one of the best AA choices we have.

contemptor with kheres are great against mass heldrake, but you might want to shy away from them if your opponent often uses oblits, las preds or las havocs in HS. They do very well against auto havocs and forgefiends.

I just played a 750 pt game on monday against a guy using 3 heldrakes and 2 units of cultists. I had 2 whirlwinds that played a major part on my victory, the mission was relic so all i had to do was keep the cultists away from the relic after i killed his warlord to win. I only had a single empty rhino left when the game ended lol. Anyway, whirlwinds are like 65 points and can always shoot at something and can ignore cover they are great for harrasment and if you place them far enough apart they will eat up some of the heldrakes time to allow your troops to do their job. everything else listed in this thread sounds super awesome too. Just hope that he doesnt also bring a bunch of FMCs along with it like the guy I played against does at higher points. His 1500 pt list has 3 drakes and like 2-3 FMCs and i think there might a fateweaver or something in there too.

Razakil wrote:
Going to be fighting a Chaos player tomorrow and am worried that he will be bringing multiple Heldrakes. I've never played against one before, so not really sure what to expect. I am hestitent to take a defense line, because I really don't have the 100 points for it. I am thinking a couple of Flakk missiles, but not sure if that would be enough if there are 2 or even 3 on the field. Thoughts or suggestions would be awesome.

What do you have in your model collection to bring?
List building will help you with your strategy, but you also need to think about your tactics.

If you had any number of models at your disposal, bring deathwing.
Normally deathwing is garbage. While its not really overpriced, your just stuck paying for a bunch of options you probably won't use.

However, if someone is a big fan of helldrakes, deathwing just does not care.