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I just found out about them, wasent sure how to deal with flyers on my marines otherwise. Str 7 seems kind of weak against say helldrakes (unless im remembering their armor wrong, is it 12/12/10 or 11/11/10) and storm ravens and such. But at least its a good option against flyrants, and to a lesser extent demon princes.

Also if you grant the carrier tank hunters some how, does it boost it up or do flakk missles have some rule that they cant be boosted in this way.

i always figured that the odds of making the str7 reg hit do anything is probably the same odds that massed high str or TL weapons for considerably less points. id rather throw some Riflemen dreads at the problem, or just have Lascannon devs take some pot shots instead.

Prescience or TL multi shot items such as assault cannons or auto cannons. Las cannons are only 1 shot and your odds aren't as high as assault cannons or auto cannons or even just prescience missile devs.

I don't bother, myself. Of course, I don't bother with AA much in general, and I certainly don't with the chaos codex. CSM can handle fliers by ignoring them, mostly, and then plinking at them with whatever actual anti-tank that they already brought. They don't really need anything special just to handle fliers and nothing else.

Twin-linked shooting from other sources is better.

A Flyrant can be shot with bolter/lasgun fire till he faceplants and then you can open up with the big guns.

With actual flyers, twin-linked shots are more than sufficient if you don't want to ignore them. Which works pretty well too. Twin-linked BS1 is mathematically the same as straight BS2.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Twin-linked shooting from other sources is better.

A Flyrant can be shot with bolter/lasgun fire till he faceplants and then you can open up with the big guns.

With actual flyers, twin-linked shots are more than sufficient if you don't want to ignore them. Which works pretty well too. Twin-linked BS1 is mathematically the same as straight BS2.

BS1 TL is a bit worse than BS2, mathematically.

Flakk missiles are fine, but not worth the points a DA dev squad with missile launchers and flakk is 170 points for 5 man vs. 150 for 4 lascannons and 130 for plasma cannons. Where the jack of all trades missiles don't do anything 1 thing well.
If they made the missile launchers cheaper (like 10 instead of 15) and the flakk upgrade much cheaper (should be free) they would get more play and wouldn't be overpowered (Tau would still be significantly better for less points on more durable units).

I'd say no, mainly because the primary meq threat, the helldrake, doesn't really care about flakk missiles. By the time you flakk it to death, it's done its damage.

well the rumors about the new C:SM codex hav Imperial and Crimson Fists getting Tank Hunters on their devs. 170 points for 4 ML with Flakk sounds pretty good. if it turns out to be true, i can see them being quite good against flyers.

Flakk missiles do look a lot better indeed with tank hunter special rule.

 Dracos wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Twin-linked shooting from other sources is better.

A Flyrant can be shot with bolter/lasgun fire till he faceplants and then you can open up with the big guns.

With actual flyers, twin-linked shots are more than sufficient if you don't want to ignore them. Which works pretty well too. Twin-linked BS1 is mathematically the same as straight BS2.

BS1 TL is a bit worse than BS2, mathematically.

Ok, its a little worse. But only by a very tiny margin. Its close enough to say they pretty much the same.

I also count BS 1 TL as BS 2.

Skip the flakk missiles and bring your own flyers. Flakk also suffer from one other major problem. The single biggest threat Marine players want to shoot down are Heldrakes, who will have no trouble flying on the board and killing the entire Devastator or Havok squad in a single attack.

Well, there is that little flaw.

DaddyWarcrimes wrote: Heldrakes, who will have no trouble flying on the board and killing the entire Devastator or Havok squad in a single attack.

It's so easy to prevent that from happening. In a size 2 ruin, spreading troops across all floors, a helldrake shouldn't be killing more than one or two per shot. Even just on the ground, you can reduce the number of hits a torrent flamer gets down to just 4 with proper displacement.

Done properly, it should take most of the game for a helldrake to kill a havoc squad - a squad that likely costs less than the helldrake.

 Ailaros wrote:

DaddyWarcrimes wrote: Heldrakes, who will have no trouble flying on the board and killing the entire Devastator or Havok squad in a single attack.

It's so easy to prevent that from happening. In a size 2 ruin, spreading troops across all floors, a helldrake shouldn't be killing more than one or two per shot. Even just on the ground, you can reduce the number of hits a torrent flamer gets down to just 4 with proper displacement.

Done properly, it should take most of the game for a helldrake to kill a havoc squad - a squad that likely costs less than the helldrake.

Nailed it. You only need two layers to protect a squad as small as Devs. Two three man (or less) Wedge formations on top of each other. It can only hit two at a time. You can use the same trick with alternating Wedges to limit damage to a ground squad.

Assuming there are ruins to do this in.

How are the meqs getting out of vector strike?

You're dreaming if you think a helldrake won't kill more than 1 or 2... even given ruins. A 5 man unit will lose half the numbers - the mean result (and without doing the math, I'll guess even the most likely result by far) is for all hits to kill a model. Unless you're saying every single game you play has a 3 level ruin - and that ruin is always in your deployment zone in a spot that is good enough to deploy in?

A tactic that will be okay but is highly situational and not a real answer.

Martel732 wrote:
Assuming there are ruins to do this in.

How are the meqs getting out of vector strike?

In this scenario they are Devestators. Position them so that a vector strike takes the Drake off the board. Either he Vectors or he bale flamers.

Obviously it's not a hard counter in every situation, but it's a great tool to limit damage

Can't the helldrake owner prevent this by moving 18" and using clever approach angles?

Devastators are not an answer to helldrakes. They are expensive enough to warrent a turn or two of being targeted, and they are precisely the type of target a helldrake wants - more expensive MEQ with no added resilience.

 Dracos wrote:
You're dreaming if you think a helldrake won't kill more than 1 or 2... even given ruins. A 5 man unit will lose half the numbers - the mean result (and without doing the math, I'll guess even the most likely result by far) is for all hits to kill a model. Unless you're saying every single game you play has a 3 level ruin - and that ruin is always in your deployment zone in a spot that is good enough to deploy in?

A tactic that will be okay but is highly situational and not a real answer.

I'm going to the shop later, I'll take some pictures for you. It's a good tool to limit Drake casualties. I use it all the time, and have it used against me. The key is to understand the shape of the flamer template.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Can't the helldrake owner prevent this by moving 18" and using clever approach angles?

Not if you're in the board corner, but even if he can, you buy yourself more turns to shoot/maneuver assets/whatever.

I play a dual Drake Army, I play against Drakes all the time. They're super good; no doubt, but there are little tools to limit them.

How are the devestators getting hit by vector strike more than once? The helldrake has to fly over them, and then turn around in a 4-turn sweep, or they're flying off the board, and its going to be a couple of turns before they can vector strike again. After they've already arrived late to the party.

And even if you don't have size two ruins (so, you have three floors, the two for the ruins and then the ground floor), you're likely having at least size one ruins. Given that GW has basically only ruins as the only terrain it sells for 40k, and that you used to get them free in starter boxes, I haven't seen many games that haven't included at least a few.

And you can still displace on a single level.

And think of it as a timing issue as well. If the helldrake doesn't shut down your devestators until turn 4 or 5... well... that's the whole game, basically. If your devestators haven't been able to have an impact worth taking them for in the time it takes a helldrake to kill them, then you probably shouldn't be taking devestators in the first place.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Dracos wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Twin-linked BS1 is mathematically the same as straight BS2.

BS1 TL is a bit worse than BS2, mathematically.

Ok, its a little worse. But only by a very tiny margin. Its close enough to say they pretty much the same.

Its 9% worse. .305 instaed of .33


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dracos wrote:
Devastators are not an answer to helldrakes. They are expensive enough to warrent a turn or two of being targeted, and they are precisely the type of target a helldrake wants - more expensive MEQ with no added resilience.

Centurions might be the answer. 80 points for a TL Lascannon and a TL missile launcher protected by T5 2+ save and 2 wounds that can move and fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

anonymou5 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Assuming there are ruins to do this in.

How are the meqs getting out of vector strike?

In this scenario they are Devestators. Position them so that a vector strike takes the Drake off the board. Either he Vectors or he bale flamers.

Obviously it's not a hard counter in every situation, but it's a great tool to limit damage

positioning is a great way to limit flyers

just beware that doing this makes it likely that your devs will run off the board if they fail their morale test.

Do I use Flakk missiles? - No.

They are over costed for what you get, and there are better options out there. Check out Imperial armour.