Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

If you have enough tall terrain, you can limit the effect of them.
You can only target the bottom 2 floors of units, which might buy you another turn to deal with them.

They hit ground targets better than any other flyer, but see to fail vs other flyers. Hades doesn't seem like a good idea, I think you'll be losing shoot out vs other flyers. I'd think you'd be better off flaming ground targets and vector striking enemy flyers.

-Matt

While I like the hell drake a whole lot more now, for the people that have 1 hell drake and say 10 spawn, should they trade their spawn in for more hell drakes? With many peoples purchases for chaos being complete at this point, do these new rules justify changing a list that has 3 maxed fast attack slots?

I'd ditch some spawn. The helldrake is that damn good. They're so obnoxiously good that I'm contemplating adding one to my IG, to supplement the pair of Vendettas.

 Sasori wrote:

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
I still dont think hades have gotten any better. BS3 really hurts it, yeah you got daemonforge, buts its only once per turn so Chaos help you if you get bad rolls for it...

Daemonforge is once per game, and you only reroll the failed pen die, not all the die. BS3 really isn't all that bad. An average of 2 Strength 8 Shots, to the rear armor of Flyers can be quite good.

Yup, even AV12 flyers have reason to fear Str8. 50% chance of damage. So a Helldrake with the autocannon will, on average, do 1 hull point of damage to an AV12 flyer and 2/3 of a damage chart roll.



Note that this benifit doesn't just apply against flyers either. You can easily get rear shots on ground vehicles too which is IMO the biggest bonus here.

I think that there are much better answers to vehicles in the codex. I'd only take an autocannon if I was bringing a second heldrake with a baleflamer. The ability to tear through MEQ no matter where they are hiding is just too good.

Looking at some of the things in the CSM codex and I'm starting to see it in a different light. It's got plenty of really tough troops. Cheap marines, cultist blob, plague marines, noise marines, and thousand sons (last three are unlocked, I know.) can be really tough when placed on an objective and can have decent mid range firepower. I think Chaos might be very good at clearing units from objectives while defending their own.

I may actually be throwing myself into the boat that Heldrakes are a unit that may be too good currently. In an objective game it could very realistically clear an objective or two of enemy troops and live on to do it again is insanely good.

I always take the hades for support fire, since my CSM are melee based, they work better with less enemy vehicles on the field.

How do you guys think the turkeys will do against the new DA? Obviously Ravenwing will get massacred, but CSMs have very little in the way of dealing with Termies. In games against DA, is it better to drop the turkeys for some Chaos spawn?

Not really, Spawn arn't any better against Terminators. Less so because, you know, the Terminators can get at the Spawn. The Helldrake is relativly safe in the sky.

If you want anti-terminator, take a Forgefiend with Ectoplasma cannons.

So the FAQ says it's weapon is a 360 degree turret measured from the flyer base? Is that just the flamer or the cannon as well?

DevianID wrote:
While I like the hell drake a whole lot more now, for the people that have 1 hell drake and say 10 spawn, should they trade their spawn in for more hell drakes? With many peoples purchases for chaos being complete at this point, do these new rules justify changing a list that has 3 maxed fast attack slots?

I don't think so. Spawn are still a great unit. Further, I think people have adapted more to flyers than they have to quick pressure units like Spawn.

Shooting kills termies, no need for spawn who are squishy in close combat versus the DA termies (who get lots of rerolls as spawn are a chaos marine unit).

No, for terminator work I would go with noise marine sonic weapons, oblits with pcannons/acannons, havoc launchers, autocannon havocs, ect.

I'd say that as long as you can get a decent number of troops in your army, or know that you are playing Deathwing/Grey Knight Terminators, I would say that it is usually wrong to not take at least one, if not two. I think the big question is whether or not you want to take a third (if you do, I would say that you would be mad to not take a Autocannon to give you some diversity) or to instead take either bikes or spawn.

5 bikes with 2 plasma guns are 10 points cheaper than 5 spawn. In my opinion they're the superior choice. Actually having a save (plus a 5+ cover save anywhere) is great. Plus the plasma allows them to annihilate termis, and they can rapid fire and charge. Also the I10 HoW makes a huge difference, because the I3 spawn suffer when charging into MEQ.

While Heldrakes are no doubt the best fast attack choice the codex has available to it, and in pretty much every sort of competitive scene, you'll want to take as many heldrakes as possible in order to have a good chance at winning, personally I am not a massive fan of them, simply because I get a sort of immediate dislike for things which as considered essential in an army, something about their inherent excellence puts me off, nevertheless, if you want to do well in a game, you really ought to take them automatically.

I want one for my Daemons, and I want to give it a Hades Autocannon. Daemons have flamers, so AP2 high-strength mobile templates are pretty well covered.
However, we are essentially helpless against fliers, and the Heldrake can be pretty sweet anti-air.

It's not that hard to use, either: fly straight over the other flyer, vector strike the sides, then ram S8 up the thing's tailpipes, and turn on Daemonforge if you really need a dead plane.

And the same firepower can target ground vehicles as well, if need be.

The heldrake wins a AA shootout because... .BINGO! it can shoot backword at your 10 rear armor after flying over you. 2s to glance and 3s to pen almost any flyer... average 2 hits and 2 pens... That is better then the average for a vendetta... 2 or 3 hits and 1 to 2 pens/glance. Yes vendetta undercosted still but will lose since once the heldrake gets behind it, it can't shoot back. assuming the front armor is 12, and that isn't including the vector strike that you can get an everage of 1 glance/pen from making the heldrake the best AA flyer (non FW) if you play it smart.

The question is 2 heldrakes and some bikes? or 3 heldrakes. Also do you want to including 1 hades in either FA setup.

It's pretty much an auto include in my lists as a 2 of. I could see running a 3rd possibly if I was just CSM at games of 1500+

With the new 360 deg baleflamer, + vector strike boost it's better than before. Note that I was running them as a 2 of already, so thanks for the Boost GW.

Honestly they are auto take. 2 of them torched an eldar players entire army before they went down today. The fact is with little to no viable anti air without taking allies many older codices have no answer to them if they are massed. You might kill 1 but the other 2 will murder anything that killed the 1st.

Can even Crons air deal with them and keep a viable ground army to deal with the rest chaos brings.

 Goat wrote:
I really want a second heldrake. I still haven't finished building my first one from release. I wanted to paint/build similtaneously but I'm a lazy painter and a fast builder and its just a disappointing pile of bits atm. I'm probably just going to build it and deal with all the paint rage later.

Just do a base coat, then paint the wings. Those are the bits that are hard to get to if you have a fully-assembled drake. You can build the body, head and rear claws.

I painted two thus far, one assembled and the other unassembled. Its much easier to get those wings unassembled.

It seems the general gist of this thread is that the hellturkey is an auto-include for a lot of lists.

Now, at 2k+ points... to spam or not to spam? Six of these versus a MEQ army would seem slightly insane.
I'm also thinking that having a small allied daemons contingent purely for pavane & hellturkey shenanigans could be highly amusing!

Daedricbob
My, that's quite tentacle party that your avatar has...

Why it is an auto include:
5/6 missions involve using scoring units to be on an objective at the end of the game (or hold it via the relic). You need to be out of a transport with usually some sort of infantry unit. Other than a few armies (Draigowing comes to mind, possibly new Dark Angels), scoring units are armor 3+ or worse. The Baleflamer mounted to the Drake is THE BEST UNIT IN THE GAME at dislodging scoring units from objectives. Period. So is it an autoinclude? Yes. There is no reason tactically (because actual dollars matter) not to take at least 2.
I think arguments can be made to take 3, but then again, those bikers/spawn are sexy as they fill a different battlefield roll.

would you still run hell turkeys in an epidemus list?

Deshkar wrote:
would you still run hell turkeys in an epidemus list?

New FAQ nerfed Epidermus lists (he no longer effects Plague Marines).

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

Deshkar wrote:
would you still run hell turkeys in an epidemus list?

New FAQ nerfed Epidermus lists (he no longer effects Plague Marines).

He still affects Plague Marines, but doesn't affect Plague Zombies.

Q: Do models nominated as Plague Zombies from Codex: Chaos Space
Marines count as followers of Nurgle for the purposes of Epidemius’
Tally of Pestilence? (p52)
A: No.