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I see lots of talk about allies or your own flyers? What you got for the nids? The only unit I can see doing much against it might be dakka flyrant. Nids are short on transport, skyfire, have no interceptor options, and only 2 units with a 2+ save one of which has to buy it as an upgrade.

Can't something like a harpy vector strike it back?

I was about to suggest mutalisks, but I was getting my Zerg mixed up with Tyranids

barnowl wrote:
I see lots of talk about allies or your own flyers? What you got for the nids? The only unit I can see doing much against it might be dakka flyrant. Nids are short on transport, skyfire, have no interceptor options, and only 2 units with a 2+ save one of which has to buy it as an upgrade.

Swooping Flyrants can Vector Strike (Although you'll only glace on sixes) But they can easily get Rear Armor shots with Twin-linked Devs, which will wreck almost every flyer out there right now. Remember that SMCs can fire 360.

Martel732 wrote:
Can't something like a harpy vector strike it back?

I was about to suggest mutalisks, but I was getting my Zerg mixed up with Tyranids

Harpy is S5, so can't even glance as I believe the drake has AV12 sides. Not to mention the Harpy is not a really great unit to start with. ( I think it never got a model becuase GW knew it would not sale)

Sounds like the Tyranids need the Harpy made a lot better. Or mutalisks.

 orchewer wrote:
Quick hijack ...

Would allying in Dark Eldar with their Razorwings be a viable counter to the Helldrake? Seems like the Baleflamer would do diddly against one.

the void raven is a better dogfighter with more armor and stronger guns. Much worse anti ground though.

Swooping Flyrants can Vector Strike (Although you'll only glace on sixes) But they can easily get Rear Armor shots with Twin-linked Devs, which will wreck almost every flyer out there right now. Remember that SMCs can fire 360.

Yes, your standard flyrant has, I think, 12 Strength 6 attacks, all twin-linked? So even against front armor you're going to be doing a glance, probably 2. Getting behind the heldrake with the flyrant is easy, and armor 10, even with a 5++, is easy prey for that number of shots. This is just one of the reasons flyrants are amazing. Furthermore, I don't think tyranids are all that hurt by the heldrake. Gaunts are inefficient for it to be killing, and vector strikes against tervigons put it in a vulnerable position.

Thariinye wrote:

Swooping Flyrants can Vector Strike (Although you'll only glace on sixes) But they can easily get Rear Armor shots with Twin-linked Devs, which will wreck almost every flyer out there right now. Remember that SMCs can fire 360.

Yes, your standard flyrant has, I think, 12 Strength 6 attacks, all twin-linked? So even against front armor you're going to be doing a glance, probably 2. Getting behind the heldrake with the flyrant is easy, and armor 10, even with a 5++, is easy prey for that number of shots. This is just one of the reasons flyrants are amazing. Furthermore, I don't think tyranids are all that hurt by the heldrake. Gaunts are inefficient for it to be killing, and vector strikes against tervigons put it in a vulnerable position.

Yeah, Double Flyrants are pretty much mandatory for these reasons.

And yeah, Heldrakes don't really do so hot against Nids, for the aforementioned reasons.

Yeah, the only thing helldrakes are really awesome against is space marine players who don't know what displacement means. And those who didn't bring enough anti-tank. And those who took way too many useless upgrades.

Put another way, they're great for hammering noob space marine players, but for everything else, they're nothing ALL that terribly special.

And perhaps marine players that forgot the metal bawkses?

Thariinye wrote:

Swooping Flyrants can Vector Strike (Although you'll only glace on sixes) But they can easily get Rear Armor shots with Twin-linked Devs, which will wreck almost every flyer out there right now. Remember that SMCs can fire 360.

Yes, your standard flyrant has, I think, 12 Strength 6 attacks, all twin-linked? So even against front armor you're going to be doing a glance, probably 2. Getting behind the heldrake with the flyrant is easy, and armor 10, even with a 5++, is easy prey for that number of shots. This is just one of the reasons flyrants are amazing. Furthermore, I don't think tyranids are all that hurt by the heldrake. Gaunts are inefficient for it to be killing, and vector strikes against tervigons put it in a vulnerable position.

Not seeing how vector striking against a ground unit with no effective counter fire is going to put the Drake in a vulnerable position. The Drake can still strip models of the board in quantity, and that is always an issue. Maybe not as much as for Marines, but still a real issue.

barnowl wrote:

Thariinye wrote:

Swooping Flyrants can Vector Strike (Although you'll only glace on sixes) But they can easily get Rear Armor shots with Twin-linked Devs, which will wreck almost every flyer out there right now. Remember that SMCs can fire 360.

Yes, your standard flyrant has, I think, 12 Strength 6 attacks, all twin-linked? So even against front armor you're going to be doing a glance, probably 2. Getting behind the heldrake with the flyrant is easy, and armor 10, even with a 5++, is easy prey for that number of shots. This is just one of the reasons flyrants are amazing. Furthermore, I don't think tyranids are all that hurt by the heldrake. Gaunts are inefficient for it to be killing, and vector strikes against tervigons put it in a vulnerable position.

Not seeing how vector striking against a ground unit with no effective counter fire is going to put the Drake in a vulnerable position. The Drake can still strip models of the board in quantity, and that is always an issue. Maybe not as much as for Marines, but still a real issue.

A Heldrake is not going to be killing enough Tyranids, even with the Baleflamer, to make a real difference. Gaunts are plentiful, and can produced by Tervigons, The Bale Flamer also only wounds TMCS on a 4+. It will take an average of at least two Vector Strikes+Two Baleflamer hits to knock out a Tervigon, without FNP.

Heldrakes will also always be vulnerable to Flyrants, as mentioned earlier.

Heldrakes are powerful, against most Armies, but a competitive Tyranid list doesn't have that much to fear from them.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, the only thing helldrakes are really awesome against is space marine players who don't know what displacement means. And those who didn't bring enough anti-tank. And those who took way too many useless upgrades.

Put another way, they're great for hammering noob space marine players, but for everything else, they're nothing ALL that terribly special.

Displacement doesnt mean much to a hell drake. It wil slightly limit the amount of people hit by the template but you can start the template just barely touching the last model in the line and end it 4 or five guys down the way. Its 5 dead marines almost any way you slice it. Dont forget vector strike as well.

Nids awsers to flying are hive guards (no cover saves) in a prefered ennemy bubble, a flyrant, or mass psykers and switching for the "haywire" effect power hoping to get it. (I am looking at you zoanthropes.)

Or ignore the flyers. It is hard with the giant dragon.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, the only thing helldrakes are really awesome against is space marine players who don't know what displacement means. And those who didn't bring enough anti-tank. And those who took way too many useless upgrades.

Put another way, they're great for hammering noob space marine players, but for everything else, they're nothing ALL that terribly special.

Well, they're remarkable against MSU Purifiers.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, the only thing helldrakes are really awesome against is space marine players who don't know what displacement means. And those who didn't bring enough anti-tank. And those who took way too many useless upgrades.

Put another way, they're great for hammering noob space marine players, but for everything else, they're nothing ALL that terribly special.

Ignorant statement. Even with full 2" spacing, the Heldrake will likely tag 5 marines, killing 4-5 with no saves. The vector will also average 3 dead. So that is the vast majority of a marine squad dead in one turn. Remember that with the 360 turret, the thing will ALWAYS be shooting. Any player taking 2+ Heldrakes should also be advised to take a Comms Relay to allow for maximum efficiency in turns they get to shoot.

Bringing enough anti-tank? You mean anti-flyer right? The thing that the vast majority of MEQ codexes do not have? Ohh, right! Even 5 Flakk missiles will do a fat lot of nothing to a Heldrake (not to mention the Heldrake alpha strikes them first to get rid of the most potent anti-flyer threat). Take an emplacement they say! But remember that 1 vector on average kills a quadgun/icarus.

Heldrakes are an overpowered unit. Show me a unit with similar raw killing potential that is both as durable, mobile and cheap as a Heldrake. Trick question. They don't exist. Vendettas deal with them quite well but that requires a Guard primary ally. BA can also deal with them fairly well if they are taking 2x SR but then much of the game will hinge upon when the SR's come in and who went first. If the SR's come in first the flyer movement rules could really hamstring their ability to dogfight.

Grabbing Rhinos doesnt work out that well either, two Heldrakes average a dead rhino a turn through vectors... Guess what happens to the squad that as embarked? Furthermore, if the CSM player takes sufficient anti-tank, it actually makes you weaker to the Heldrake due to clumped models.

 StormK wrote:
To those who say "it's not broke" I say "show me". Give me a vanilla counter or CSM counter that does not require me running out to buy my own Helldrakes.

The humble Stormtalon can actually be very effective against Heldrakes, as it can fly over them and fire its twin-linked assault cannon (which has 360 degrees of freedom) into their rear armor. When combined with Null Zone to mitigate the Heldrake's 5+ Invulnerable save (or force it to Evade, which is almost as good), vanilla Marines can actually deal with Heldrakes rather effectively.

 Kingsley wrote:

 StormK wrote:
To those who say "it's not broke" I say "show me". Give me a vanilla counter or CSM counter that does not require me running out to buy my own Helldrakes.

The humble Stormtalon can actually be very effective against Heldrakes, as it can fly over them and fire its twin-linked assault cannon (which has 360 degrees of freedom) into their rear armor. When combined with Null Zone to mitigate the Heldrake's 5+ Invulnerable save (or force it to Evade, which is almost as good), vanilla Marines can actually deal with Heldrakes rather effectively.

If your Talon comes in first, the Heldrake can sweep you and put you in a bad position to shoot it. There are a ton of variables here, but I wouldn't say a pair, or even 3 Stormtalons would be overly effective at countering 2-3 Heldrakes. Not to mention that the Stormtalon is VERY weak vs. Necron flyers and even quite susceptible to Aegis emplacements.

This isn't to say that they don't help, I just don't believe that they help enough to mitigate the problem that Heldrakes pose.

LValx wrote:
The vector will also average 3 dead... remember that 1 vector on average kills a quadgun/icarus.

The Vector averages 3 hits, not 3 kills. Because it is possible for a hit to fail to wound, the average number of kills vs. T5- 3+ models is actually 2.5, not 3. Similarly, an emplacement taking three hits will take 1.5 wounds on average, not 2. In other words, it's basically a 50-50 shot as to whether or not the emplacement will go down.

 Kingsley wrote:

LValx wrote:
The vector will also average 3 dead... remember that 1 vector on average kills a quadgun/icarus.

The Vector averages 3 hits, not 3 kills. Because it is possible for a hit to fail to wound, the average number of kills vs. T5- 3+ models is actually 2.5, not 3. Similarly, an emplacement taking three hits will take 1.5 wounds on average, not 2. In other words, it's basically a 50-50 shot as to whether or not the emplacement will go down.

I was rounding obviously. The problem remains that a Quadgun/Icarus has very little chance statistically to take down a Heldrake and a pair of them will kill it with near certainty, removing one of the few skyfire threats the majority of MEQ's have access to (without allies of course, which really only adds 1 Vendetta, which also doesn't have superb odds). Heldrakes are incredibly tough and I am near certain that a triplet of them would wreck havoc on the list you run.

I suspect it's so good in small local metas because the only people bringing two of them will be WAAC players anyway. Generally they only have the chance to play against average Joe's or noobs, and so their armies are bloated with the kinds of things like the Wraithguard star with 2 wraithlords and a wraithseer. Which, along with 2-3 heldrakes, are a pain but still manageable to good players, but new players or ones that don't just autotake all of the statistically op units have real trouble with them.

Themed armies are impossible to field against these kinds of players unless you're really skilled because you just don't have the same tools that they do, or if you do, you don't take 3+ of each of them.

These are what I like to call pub-stars. Whenever you see them in the shop or playing games they are either discussing how to break the game with whichever army(they own almost every army)was just broken with an FAQ or new rules change/codex.

They jump to the kill to field the most game breaking armies possible, and usually spend hours upon hours list building trying to think up more ways to make every 40k/fantasy gaming night a nightmare to non pub-stars.

Did I mention they are also sore losers as well? And not always in the tantrum kind of way, though sometimes you see that, but mostly you'll see them start to act like middle schoolers. This includes either taking ridiculously long turns or demanding a reroll for anything that looks even remotely cocked. Questioning every shot's LOS or stopping in the middle of whatever they're doing just to sigh and complain about dice odds.

They will never acknowledge that you had anything to do with beating them, for it will forever be the dice at fault, or something else. Complaints about "This is why I never play 40k/fantasy/etc, so stupid." when the dice don't obey the statistical law of averages every time, even when they're winning.

In closing, I apologize for the rant, but the heldrake in my opinion is one of those models/units that is the way it is on purpose. It's a CSM unit that is meant to be absolutely brutal to any type of marines, period. Which, is a tad fluffy, but max 10% fluff, and 90% cheese, pardon offense again.

They're hella easy to use, are cheap, durable, very offensive, look kinda cool, though every single one of them I've seen is painted the EXACT same way. Base coat boltgun, paint all raised lines/swirls gold and done. It looks HORRID. I wish half of these suckers would put a bit more effort into their painting, because when an op model is modeled/painted extremely well, your opponents won't care as much as if it looks like you spent minimum amount of time on it to a 6th grade standard.

Ok, the end for real. Sorry guys again.

Cheers.

LValx wrote:
I was rounding obviously. The problem remains that a Quadgun/Icarus has very little chance statistically to take down a Heldrake and a pair of them will kill it with near certainty, removing one of the few skyfire threats the majority of MEQ's have access to (without allies of course, which really only adds 1 Vendetta, which also doesn't have superb odds). Heldrakes are incredibly tough and I am near certain that a triplet of them would wreck havoc on the list you run.

Thus far, Heldrakes haven't done much against me. Most of my experience was pre-FAQ, however. That said, I think things have changed less than you might expect. Overall, I still consider Colossus Siege Mortars to be both more dangerous and cheaper than Heldrakes.

]I suspect it's so good in small local metas because the only people bringing two of them will be WAAC players anyway. Generally they only have the chance to play against average Joe's or noobs, and so their armies are bloated with the kinds of things like the Wraithguard star with 2 wraithlords and a wraithseer. Which, along with 2-3 heldrakes, are a pain but still manageable to good players, but new players or ones that don't just autotake all of the statistically op units have real trouble with them.

Ok, let's get something straight here. WAAC is not the same as Competitive play.

Secondly, Wraithguard, Wraithlords, and Wraithseers are hardly anywhere near competitive units.

If someone doesn't want to make their list competitive, why should you punish the competitive player? Why does he have to dumb down his list, because someone doesn't want to make theirs better?

Themed armies are impossible to field against these kinds of players unless you're really skilled because you just don't have the same tools that they do, or if you do, you don't take 3+ of each of them.

You choose not to take the tools, and choose to take a Subpar list. You full well know this, when going into a game. Once again, it's not the competitive players fault.

These are what I like to call pub-stars. Whenever you see them in the shop or playing games they are either discussing how to break the game with whichever army(they own almost every army)was just broken with an FAQ or new rules change/codex.

This is just silly. Someone is a pubstar, because they like to bring tough lists, and play at a competitive level?

They jump to the kill to field the most game breaking armies possible, and usually spend hours upon hours list building trying to think up more ways to make every 40k/fantasy gaming night a nightmare to non pub-stars.

Yes, I'm sure that's why they do it. To make it a nightmare for other people. Once again, you just seem to be lumping in competitive players, and making these false, sweeping statements.

Did I mention they are also sore losers as well? And not always in the tantrum kind of way, though sometimes you see that, but mostly you'll see them start to act like middle schoolers. This includes either taking ridiculously long turns or demanding a reroll for anything that looks even remotely cocked. Questioning every shot's LOS or stopping in the middle of whatever they're doing just to sigh and complain about dice odds.

So, following the rules, and ensuring that they are being followed correctly, is now bad? This is very silly. You're also just making sweeping statements again.

They will never acknowledge that you had anything to do with beating them, for it will forever be the dice at fault, or something else. Complaints about "This is why I never play 40k/fantasy/etc, so stupid." when the dice don't obey the statistical law of averages every time, even when they're winning.

More sweeping statements. It must be wonderful to be so ignorant.

In closing, I apologize for the rant, but the heldrake in my opinion is one of those models/units that is the way it is on purpose. It's a CSM unit that is meant to be absolutely brutal to any type of marines, period. Which, is a tad fluffy, but max 10% fluff, and 90% gaycheese, pardon offense again.

Really? Gaycheese? How mature of you.

Ok, the end for real. Sorry guys again.

Cheers.

This rant, was just a whiny set of ignorant generalizations, aimed at competitive players. It makes you sound like a sore loser, and that you blame more competitive players, for shortcomings in peoples lists. A lot of people enjoy competitive 40K, and there is nothing wrong with that. If that is not the way you personally enjoy it, you are not obligated to play these people, but bashing them for enjoying 40k by being competitive is just rude.

LValx wrote:Even with full 2" spacing, the Heldrake will likely tag 5 marines, killing 4-5 with no saves.

Like I said, it's good against people who don't understand displacement. If you're getting 5 hits on your opponents, opponents who know that there is a bale flamer coming, then they don't understand displacement.

LValx wrote:Bringing enough anti-tank? You mean anti-flyer right?

No, I meant anti-tank. Most of the fliers I've taken down so far this edition have been done with meltaguns and lascannons. Just because they're less accurate doesn't mean that they magically do no damage when they do hit.

Plus, there's a lot of options out there for people that are good against both. I've seen my share of psyfleman and venom and scatter laser and loota spam before.

LValx wrote:Show me a unit with similar raw killing potential that is both as durable, mobile and cheap as a Heldrake. Trick question.

The imperial guard colossus. Parked out of LOS, it can't be targeted, making it infinitely more survivable, and otherwise, it can actually make use of cover (including taking camo cloaks), and doesn't care about skyfire. It also does a S6 ignores cover Ap3 blast, but it can do it at much better ranges, and is like 50 points cheaper.

Seriously, you're way over reacting. Fliers are not invincible, they can't throw entire marine squads off the table unless you're dumb, and helldrakes are really expensive, and they don't do anything against terminators or monstrous creatures, or vehicles of any kind.

If the kind of killing the helldrake does was really so good, every guard player would start their list building with 3 colossuses. As it is, they don't, and for good reason.

On the other hand maybe that good reason is just simply. "There isn't a model out, the nearest equivalent is a forgeworld bombard which is the wrong hull and I don't like big conversion projects."

The vast majority of players I know, knew nothing about manticores until the plastic model came out.

You know irony?

Every game where I've faced dual heldrakes, I've had no problems shooting them down and winning the game.

However, every game where I've faced dual Storm Talons was a struggle both in killing them and in winning the game.

Go figure.

First off let me say I dont think Heldrakes are overpowered. I actually think they are very correctly costed. They only have one attack + vector strike. They are only survivable because they are a flyer. Any serious anti-flyer can kill them.

Heldrakes are much more effective when complimented by other units which can protect them from anti-flyer attacks, and destroy units they are not effective against. Simply putting 3 drakes on the table doesnt mean you win. However it will give you very potent anti-infantry.

The thing about the Baleflamer is it is torrent. Which means you can manipulate the flamer template to achieve a maximum amount of hits.

Lets talk about displacement. Most people deploy their line infantry in a line more or less, with about 2" of displacement. They will place their Sgts, special or heavy weapons and other upgrades behind a first rank to get protection for those units. With 6th ed wound allocation you need to hide those from enemy fire or you will lose the teeth of those units. Most people also deploy in lines in order to get most of their weapons in range (which will become more important due to the new FAQ). Here for arguments sake is a quick displaced deployment of a 10 man squad. Assume 2" between each squad member and 2" between each row of troops.

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

Now the flamer template is 8 1/8" long and 2 1/3/inches wide at its largest point. You can lay that across, barely touching the first few models and having the fat part hit at least 2 more models down the line. Add in a vector strike and you have crippled if not out right destroyed the squad. That's with perfect displacement.

Now add in fire lanes, terrain, cover, other units, deep strikers, consolidation after assault, objectives and so on and you will find that you will be able to get much more than 5 models in most cases. And the Heldrake can get almost anywhere on the table and has a 360 degree arc of fire. Its brutally effective.

 Sasori wrote:

]I suspect it's so good in small local metas because the only people bringing two of them will be WAAC players anyway. Generally they only have the chance to play against average Joe's or noobs, and so their armies are bloated with the kinds of things like the Wraithguard star with 2 wraithlords and a wraithseer. Which, along with 2-3 heldrakes, are a pain but still manageable to good players, but new players or ones that don't just autotake all of the statistically op units have real trouble with them.

Ok, let's get something straight here. WAAC is not the same as Competitive play.

Secondly, Wraithguard, Wraithlords, and Wraithseers are hardly anywhere near competitive units.

If someone doesn't want to make their list competitive, why should you punish the competitive player? Why does he have to dumb down his list, because someone doesn't want to make theirs better?

Themed armies are impossible to field against these kinds of players unless you're really skilled because you just don't have the same tools that they do, or if you do, you don't take 3+ of each of them.

You choose not to take the tools, and choose to take a Subpar list. You full well know this, when going into a game. Once again, it's not the competitive players fault.

These are what I like to call pub-stars. Whenever you see them in the shop or playing games they are either discussing how to break the game with whichever army(they own almost every army)was just broken with an FAQ or new rules change/codex.

This is just silly. Someone is a pubstar, because they like to bring tough lists, and play at a competitive level?

They jump to the kill to field the most game breaking armies possible, and usually spend hours upon hours list building trying to think up more ways to make every 40k/fantasy gaming night a nightmare to non pub-stars.

Yes, I'm sure that's why they do it. To make it a nightmare for other people. Once again, you just seem to be lumping in competitive players, and making these false, sweeping statements.

Did I mention they are also sore losers as well? And not always in the tantrum kind of way, though sometimes you see that, but mostly you'll see them start to act like middle schoolers. This includes either taking ridiculously long turns or demanding a reroll for anything that looks even remotely cocked. Questioning every shot's LOS or stopping in the middle of whatever they're doing just to sigh and complain about dice odds.

So, following the rules, and ensuring that they are being followed correctly, is now bad? This is very silly. You're also just making sweeping statements again.

They will never acknowledge that you had anything to do with beating them, for it will forever be the dice at fault, or something else. Complaints about "This is why I never play 40k/fantasy/etc, so stupid." when the dice don't obey the statistical law of averages every time, even when they're winning.

More sweeping statements. It must be wonderful to be so ignorant.

In closing, I apologize for the rant, but the heldrake in my opinion is one of those models/units that is the way it is on purpose. It's a CSM unit that is meant to be absolutely brutal to any type of marines, period. Which, is a tad fluffy, but max 10% fluff, and 90% gaycheese, pardon offense again.

Really? Gaycheese? How mature of you.

Ok, the end for real. Sorry guys again.

Cheers.

This rant, was just a whiny set of ignorant generalizations, aimed at competitive players. It makes you sound like a sore loser, and that you blame more competitive players, for shortcomings in peoples lists. A lot of people enjoy competitive 40K, and there is nothing wrong with that. If that is not the way you personally enjoy it, you are not obligated to play these people, but bashing them for enjoying 40k by being competitive is just rude.

You missed the point. All of the heldrake hate you see online is specifically because of people like these. By all means continue to defend these players by saying "They just enjoy having fun in a way that pleases them."

Please. Do you know how many passive aggressive anti-socials stalk FLGS's and GW's? These people do not take armies because they are fun to play with/against or cool. They take everything in them after spending hours of deliberating on how best to take advantage and exploit every typo in every codex/FAQ.

There are at least 2-3 of these players every 40k night at the GW I go to now, and the same could be said for the one I used to frequent but closed. Their armies are almost never painted. They almost never play in any real competitive tournament environments. Their hobby is inventing new ways to break or take advantage of the rules, and mathhammer, lots of mathhammer.

Despite how personal my post sounded, and it was, because I have to deal with these guys every week, they don't even just keep to themselves, they comment on everyone's playstyle, say all units but the stupid ones are gak, and again, never have painted armies, proxy a hell of a lot, and act offended and upset/confused whenever you even ATTEMPT to ask them a question about something in their list or their game, or engage in a conversation. There are never any maybe's with them, anything not statistically proven superior is not even worth considering to them, and none of this is even that bad with the exception of them excluding themselves and others from teams, general conversation with others, and if they're not winning or rolling statistically average, they're having a rotten time, and they'll make everyone around them have just as rotten a night as them with complaining and stalling games, or back-seat gaming.

You KNOW the kinds of people I'm talking about. I won't insult your intelligence by assuming you don't.

To close, there is a difference between competitive players and these people. I know plenty of competitive tourney-going players, and unless they're testing a list for a tourney or playing eachother you won't see them bring in a WAAC list every week to casual gaming night like THESE people. The worst thing about them though, is that new players emulate these players' playstyle and start playing the game the same way, like a chain or infection.

There are competitive players, and then there are these ones.

Back on topic. Cheese filled armies are only really brought to weekly gaming clubs by pub-stars. And against them, if you have none, you will die to the cheese, because that's what their lists are for. Destroying casual/fluffy/new players. Against anyone really good at the game with a halfway decent army they don't stand a chance because they rely on gimmicks. The heldrake just happens to be exceptionally good for its points and has almost no weaknesses besides rear armor AV10.

I'm sorry everyone for derailing the thread. For any further discussion I'll make a new thread possibly or finish in PM's.

If I've come off angry it's because I am, because every edition has these players, and the only good they bring to gaming clubs is the money they spend there, and someone to test tourney lists against.

Glocknall wrote:Simply putting 3 drakes on the table doesn't mean you win.

And that's really the most succinct way to put it. If something is really overpowered, you should be able to walk away with most games by spamming it. If you spam helldrakes, you're throwing down nearly 600 points on something that can't hurt vehicles, and doesn't do much to heavy infantry or hordes. Hardly a game breaker.

As for your diagram, don't put them in lines, put the squad in a circle. The minimum number of hits it's possible to achieve with a flamer is 3, and that's when the flamer is in an optimal position. Torrent helps with this an awful lot, but it doesn't guarantee it. I've been up against torrent weapons a few times this edition, and displacement has made it so that a few times my opponents have only gotten 2 hits with them.

Blast and template weapons are only scary to people who don't understand displacement.

 Ailaros wrote:

LValx wrote:Even with full 2" spacing, the Heldrake will likely tag 5 marines, killing 4-5 with no saves.

Like I said, it's good against people who don't understand displacement. If you're getting 5 hits on your opponents, opponents who know that there is a bale flamer coming, then they don't understand displacement.

LValx wrote:Bringing enough anti-tank? You mean anti-flyer right?

No, I meant anti-tank. Most of the fliers I've taken down so far this edition have been done with meltaguns and lascannons. Just because they're less accurate doesn't mean that they magically do no damage when they do hit.

Plus, there's a lot of options out there for people that are good against both. I've seen my share of psyfleman and venom and scatter laser and loota spam before.

LValx wrote:Show me a unit with similar raw killing potential that is both as durable, mobile and cheap as a Heldrake. Trick question.

The imperial guard colossus. Parked out of LOS, it can't be targeted, making it infinitely more survivable, and otherwise, it can actually make use of cover (including taking camo cloaks), and doesn't care about skyfire. It also does a S6 ignores cover Ap3 blast, but it can do it at much better ranges, and is like 50 points cheaper.

Seriously, you're way over reacting. Fliers are not invincible, they can't throw entire marine squads off the table unless you're dumb, and helldrakes are really expensive, and they don't do anything against terminators or monstrous creatures, or vehicles of any kind.

If the kind of killing the helldrake does was really so good, every guard player would start their list building with 3 colossuses. As it is, they don't, and for good reason.

It doesn't matter how you place your models, you cannot be further than 2" apart and no matter what funky squad formation you choose, you are very unlikely to deny less than 4 hits, more likely that you get hit 5 times. I know because I play vs them regularly and do all that I can to mitigate the damage. If you take massed melta, you are unlikely to do well vs massed MEQ so there is a give and a take. Assuming you take at least some, that melta has to be in range and has to roll a lucky 6 to hit. Keep in mind the 5+ invuln that the Heldrake player can get just as lucky with. Simply stated lascannons and melta are EXTREMELY inefficient anti-tank.

The Heldrake is also quite good at killing light AV vehicles. D3+1 auto str 7 hits will take down Chimeras and Rhinos plenty fast, I see it regularly and I've used them a few times myself. It is better than you think. MC's also can get hurt quite badly by Heldrakes now that the vector ignores cover. 2x Vectors will put 3-5w on most T6 MC's.

One Heldrake (assuming targets are there) should kill ~7 MEQ a turn assuming it vectors and the squad placement was good. If it does this for 3-4 turns it will easily have done its job and more. The Heldrake is a huge issue.