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.

 L0rdF1end wrote:
So lets see, pulling back on topic.

If your opponent bring both Helldrakes and Vendetta's. What the hell do you do now?

play green tide and laugh as he kills <10 fearless boys a pass with the heldrake and <3 boys with the detta

 kronk wrote:

 L0rdF1end wrote:
So lets see, pulling back on topic.

If your opponent bring both Helldrakes and Vendetta's. What the hell do you do now?

Bring your own Vendettas! Yay, arms race!

And that, my friends, is how the Imperial Guard does things.
3 Helldrakes and 3 Vendettas will not win against 9 Vendettas and 3 Hydra Flack Tanks supported by a few Russes.

 TheCaptain wrote:

 L0rdF1end wrote:
So lets see, pulling back on topic.

If your opponent bring both Helldrakes and Vendetta's. What the hell do you do now?

Or Alpha-strike him off the board by turn 2.

Or spread yourself out to limit where he can fly onto. If he doesnt have the room to zoom on, he'll have to hover, where you can clip his wings rather nastily.

Oopsie daisy, I meant anti-flyer pertaining to melta and las, especially pertains to las. Melta isnt great either due to short range. To pen AV 12 you'd optimally want to be within 6".

Heldrakes will get more than 2-3 passovers! Good players i've played are using relays to ensure efficiency. Considering games almost always go to turn 6, it is likely they get 4 turns which means 50-60 dead MEQ (assuming there are that many). 3 vendettas is 400 pts and a triple flyer squadron is extremely unwieldly. I wouldnt not consider that a good counter. Almost a quarter of your points on a unit that is damn near useless vs Orks and other foot hordes (Daemons too).

Heldrakes make it increasingly difficult to build a take all comers list

Aegis with a Quad Gun. I played one game with it and decided that I'll probably never leave home without it.

Stoffer wrote:Aegis with a Quad Gun. I played one game with it and decided that I'll probably never leave home without it.

Rarely, maybe even never, enough to deal with multiple flyers. At least not against competent players.

Afrodactyl wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

 L0rdF1end wrote:
So lets see, pulling back on topic.

If your opponent bring both Helldrakes and Vendetta's. What the hell do you do now?

Or Alpha-strike him off the board by turn 2.

Or spread yourself out to limit where he can fly onto. If he doesnt have the room to zoom on, he'll have to hover, where you can clip his wings rather nastily.

Heldrakes can't hover, and Vendettas can deep strike.

 TheCaptain wrote:

Stoffer wrote:Aegis with a Quad Gun. I played one game with it and decided that I'll probably never leave home without it.

Rarely, maybe even never, enough to deal with multiple flyers. At least not against competent players.

Afrodactyl wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

 L0rdF1end wrote:
So lets see, pulling back on topic.

If your opponent bring both Helldrakes and Vendetta's. What the hell do you do now?

Or Alpha-strike him off the board by turn 2.

Or spread yourself out to limit where he can fly onto. If he doesnt have the room to zoom on, he'll have to hover, where you can clip his wings rather nastily.

Heldrakes can't hover, and Vendettas can deep strike.

If you're playing against 9 flyers? Sure, absolutely not enough. 1-3 flyers? It will make its points back very quickly.

 Stoffer wrote:

If you're playing against 9 flyers? Sure, absolutely not enough. 1-3 flyers? It will make its points back very quickly.

Not if the player protects his investments and kills it turn 1 like he should.

An ADL makes its points back if it kills one flyer, but then there's another in the air, and what then?

As a known flyer-spammer, my first perrogative is to kill any interceptor guns. If they're still alive when I hit the board, I kill them the next turn. Any Flyer-player who lets an Aegis solo-handle his flyers is awful. It will not be enough against a good player.

 Exergy wrote:

LValx wrote:

 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.

Oh No! a counter might not be good against everything in the game?

Stormtalons are good, mobile AT that can counter a hellturkey. If you dont want to accept them then dont, but dont whine about heldrakes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LValx wrote:

 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.

it really depends on how many marines there are. If you only have 5, it is easy to make it so it can only hit 4. If you have 10, you can pretty easily make it so it can only hit 5.

The heldrake is only going to get 2-3 passes and all you want to do is preserve your scoring/expensive troops. Best way to do that is to have your expensive troops in rhinos and MORE scoring troops. Scouts score and are cheap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LValx wrote:

(without allies of course, which really only adds 1 Vendetta, which also doesn't have superb odds).

allies can bring 3 vendettas in one squadron, which will make short work of 3 helldrakes and then go on to kill any other tanks the chaos player might have.

I dont believe Talons are particularly efficient anti- Heldrake as an Asscan cannot do many HP to av10, especially when it has a 5+ and IWND. I also think the Talon has too many other weaknesses. AV11 with 2 HP for its cost is too much.

A suitable way to mitigate the problem is a power field generator in a LRC. This can provide a 4+ meaning you lose little.

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Stoffer wrote:

If you're playing against 9 flyers? Sure, absolutely not enough. 1-3 flyers? It will make its points back very quickly.

Not if the player protects his investments and kills it turn 1 like he should.

An ADL makes its points back if it kills one flyer, but then there's another in the air, and what then?

As a known flyer-spammer, my first perrogative is to kill any interceptor guns. If they're still alive when I hit the board, I kill them the next turn. Any Flyer-player who lets an Aegis solo-handle his flyers is awful. It will not be enough against a good player.

We'll just disagree on this one then vOv.

if you're playing against a good player, he'll place it somewhere that has good vision of the sky but not in range/vision to get shot to pieces turn 1. If you're a flyer-player you won't really have a chance to handle it with flyers till after it's shot, so that's a moot point. Again, sure if you're spamming it won't do much; if you're playing someone with a smaller number of flyers, it becomes considerably more valuable.

 TheCaptain wrote:

Stoffer wrote:Aegis with a Quad Gun. I played one game with it and decided that I'll probably never leave home without it.

Rarely, maybe even never, enough to deal with multiple flyers. At least not against competent players.

Afrodactyl wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

 L0rdF1end wrote:
So lets see, pulling back on topic.

If your opponent bring both Helldrakes and Vendetta's. What the hell do you do now?

Or Alpha-strike him off the board by turn 2.

Or spread yourself out to limit where he can fly onto. If he doesnt have the room to zoom on, he'll have to hover, where you can clip his wings rather nastily.

Heldrakes can't hover, and Vendettas can deep strike.

Heldrakes can hover. This is a common thing people miss.

Besides the rifleman Im going to eventually run (its low on the list) Im thinking the pair of Razorbacks with Lascannons Im putting my veteran squads in will do nicely against flyers and armor.

LValx wrote:
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.

Context people! Don't take that comment out of context.
He is referring to the weapons striking flyers. Not vendetta LCs. Not MMs on Stormravens.
And yes, he is correct. A single LC shooting blowing up a helldrake is stupidly small
1/6 to hit, 1/2 to penetrate, 2/3 failed save, 1/3 of blowing up = 1/54 chance. "Line up your lascannons boys, were gonna need a lot of em"

LValx wrote:
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.

Chimeras, yes. Rhinos, no. Mathhammer it out.
1/3 to penetrate, 1/6 to destroy. Each strike has a 1/18 chance to destroy a rhino. In fact they only have a 50% to take off a hull point. Your going to need two vector strikes to crack one rhino.

 Exergy wrote:


Oh No! a counter might not be good against everything in the game?

Stormtalons are good, mobile AT that can counter a hellturkey. If you dont want to accept them then dont, but dont whine about heldrakes.

Biggest problem with the Talon (besides being ugly), is that unless you got lucky with a WD or have an Ipad, you really can't get a legit copy of the rules anymore. I find that alone makes it a poor counter for the helldrake as a general recommendation.

Aren't the rules on the internet somewhere?

 labmouse42 wrote:

LValx wrote:
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.

Context people! Don't take that comment out of context.
He is referring to the weapons striking flyers. Not vendetta LCs. Not MMs on Stormravens.

That's not taking something out of context, it's bad wording on his part. Which he addressed and clarified.

Martel732 wrote:
Aren't the rules on the internet somewhere?

they got all kinds of things on that internet

 TheCaptain wrote:

Stoffer wrote:Aegis with a Quad Gun. I played one game with it and decided that I'll probably never leave home without it.

Rarely, maybe even never, enough to deal with multiple flyers. At least not against competent players.

This is so true after they reach more than two flyers fortifications are mostly pointless

 captain collius wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

Stoffer wrote:Aegis with a Quad Gun. I played one game with it and decided that I'll probably never leave home without it.

Rarely, maybe even never, enough to deal with multiple flyers. At least not against competent players.

This is so true after they reach more than two flyers fortifications are mostly pointless

Not pointless; just not enough.

I have a possibly stupid question: Why is it assumed that the Heldrakes 'Turret Mounted Weapons' means 360 degrees? Isn't an arc of, at most, 180 degree, a full front arc, be more accurate?

Arc of Sight #4 on pg 72 in the BRB. 360 degree on a turret-mounted weapon

 Exergy wrote:

 L0rdF1end wrote:
So lets see, pulling back on topic.

If your opponent bring both Helldrakes and Vendetta's. What the hell do you do now?

play green tide and laugh as he kills <10 fearless boys a pass with the heldrake and <3 boys with the detta

Yeah and it works great with Vendettas as well, and they don't ignore cover. Seriously I have to laugh at all the Marine players crying about losing it AP 3 flamers when any flamer in the game cooks Orks with their 6+ save. Welcome to our world Lads. The redeemer has 2 of those and no one is calling it OP (any more), IG has a Fast Chem Cannon deally for cheap and could take 9.

Hello! All Marine chapters have Terminators! Bust out those shoulder mounter rockits and what not. 2+ save.

The only time as an Ork player I had trouble with Heldrakes is when the opp. decided to DS 2 units of Oblits into my backfield. That was a hell of a game at that point and I still came out on top (barely).

Pull up your power armor underwear and learn, evolve. Hell, play as a Xenos race for awhile and then go back and be grateful for everything Marines do have, ATSKNF and so forth.

Finally, I know the exact type of WAAC players you're talking about. They do exist, and not only do they no paint their armies, proxy like hell, the guy I know borrows most stuff on top of that! They do exist.

Thanks for all the laughs.

PipeAlley.

 PipeAlley wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 L0rdF1end wrote:
So lets see, pulling back on topic.

If your opponent bring both Helldrakes and Vendetta's. What the hell do you do now?

play green tide and laugh as he kills <10 fearless boys a pass with the heldrake and <3 boys with the detta

Yeah and it works great with Vendettas as well, and they don't ignore cover. Seriously I have to laugh at all the Marine players crying about losing it AP 3 flamers when any flamer in the game cooks Orks with their 6+ save. Welcome to our world Lads. The redeemer has 2 of those and no one is calling it OP (any more), IG has a Fast Chem Cannon deally for cheap and could take 9.

Hello! All Marine chapters have Terminators! Bust out those shoulder mounter rockits and what not. 2+ save.

The only time as an Ork player I had trouble with Heldrakes is when the opp. decided to DS 2 units of Oblits into my backfield. That was a hell of a game at that point and I still came out on top (barely).

Pull up your power armor underwear and learn, evolve. Hell, play as a Xenos race for awhile and then go back and be grateful for everything Marines do have, ATSKNF and so forth.

Finally, I know the exact type of WAAC players you're talking about. They do exist, and not only do they no paint their armies, proxy like hell, the guy I know borrows most stuff on top of that! They do exist.

Thanks for all the laughs.

PipeAlley.

The difference between Helldrake and Redeemer/Bane Wolf is the durability, speed and range of the delivery system, Bane Wolves are essentially one shot weapons since they will be gone next turn if they fire, LRRs are expensive, fairly slow and have trouble lining up both of its guns. A Helldrake will zoom all over the place and hit majority of the field however and being a flyer it's not gonna die to charging power fist, melta bomb and that sort of things next turn.

Noise Marines with Helldrake sounds a start of long, cover ignoring relationship.

Read thread. Read redundantly that only counters is space marine fliers, and or guard flies. Plays orks. Foot slogging orks. brings 25 auto cannons to the table as foot slogging orks. My face when i only been able to shoot down 2 fliers out of 8 games. Be sad when i hear a hell drake coming.. it just too perfect at killing ground. Amazed no one runs triple drake.

Untill then lads, orks are going to have a very hard day with those hell drakes.

25 autocannons = 50 shots = 8.33 hits = 1.38 glances, 1.38 pens = not enough to outright kill an Armour 12 flyer in one turn, unless you get lucky. If it has an invulnerable save or any method of getting Hull Points back... you might not even kill it in two turns. And that's assuming you're shooting your entire, not inconsiderable army at that one flier

This is the big problem with fliers -- BS1 is a ridiculous harsh penalty for shooting at them.

 labmouse42 wrote:

LValx wrote:
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.

Context people! Don't take that comment out of context.
He is referring to the weapons striking flyers. Not vendetta LCs. Not MMs on Stormravens.
And yes, he is correct. A single LC shooting blowing up a helldrake is stupidly small
1/6 to hit, 1/2 to penetrate, 2/3 failed save, 1/3 of blowing up = 1/54 chance. "Line up your lascannons boys, were gonna need a lot of em"

LValx wrote:
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.

Chimeras, yes. Rhinos, no. Mathhammer it out.
1/3 to penetrate, 1/6 to destroy. Each strike has a 1/18 chance to destroy a rhino. In fact they only have a 50% to take off a hull point. Your going to need two vector strikes to crack one rhino.

I am not talking about one, I realize one won't kill a rhino with vectors. In fact, I dont think 1 Heldrake is a huge obstacle. I am talking about pairs or triplets (triplets obviously being the worst). A pair of heldrakes can easily vector one vehicle to death when they come in and then fry the entire squad that was embarked. A big reason I think that rhinos/chimeras aren't a great fix vs them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PipeAlley wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 L0rdF1end wrote:
So lets see, pulling back on topic.

If your opponent bring both Helldrakes and Vendetta's. What the hell do you do now?

play green tide and laugh as he kills <10 fearless boys a pass with the heldrake and <3 boys with the detta

Yeah and it works great with Vendettas as well, and they don't ignore cover. Seriously I have to laugh at all the Marine players crying about losing it AP 3 flamers when any flamer in the game cooks Orks with their 6+ save. Welcome to our world Lads. The redeemer has 2 of those and no one is calling it OP (any more), IG has a Fast Chem Cannon deally for cheap and could take 9.

Hello! All Marine chapters have Terminators! Bust out those shoulder mounter rockits and what not. 2+ save.

The only time as an Ork player I had trouble with Heldrakes is when the opp. decided to DS 2 units of Oblits into my backfield. That was a hell of a game at that point and I still came out on top (barely).

Pull up your power armor underwear and learn, evolve. Hell, play as a Xenos race for awhile and then go back and be grateful for everything Marines do have, ATSKNF and so forth.

Finally, I know the exact type of WAAC players you're talking about. They do exist, and not only do they no paint their armies, proxy like hell, the guy I know borrows most stuff on top of that! They do exist.

Thanks for all the laughs.

PipeAlley.

Ork boy costs half if not even a third of what certain MEQ's cost. You don't have as much reason to care about flamers!

Ok, I know it's a slight tangent, but the Chaos Space Marines can have potentially 4.. well 3+1. 3 Hell Drakes and a Flying DP with the Burning Brand. I'm sure this is no surprise to many of you, but I feel like it should be in this conversation, since we're talking about how terrible the Helldrake is in multiples, let's not forget that there could be potentially 4 (3+1) of these beasts vector striking around all with torrent ap3 flamers.

Heldrakes were a big problem pre-FAQ but the FAQ made them way worse, the ability to shoot backwards means the Heldrake can shoot almost all game if the pilot is competent. Some of the folks here are severely underestimating just how much havoc the wreak on any MEQ army.

I understand there are viable strategies to MITIGATE their damage output, but things like full 2" spacing are both time consuming and not always possible (post assault, forced disembark come to mind). It completely changes the way you must play and that is what makes it such a powerful unit. And the longer a game goes on, the more damaging they are because most armies have to "ignore" them due to the lack of good skyfire options. 1 Allied Vendetta does very little, even a combo of 1 Vendetta/Quadgun/Hydra is most likely only going to down 1 a turn and that assuming all that stuff was left alive by the other 1,500 points of CSM/Orks/Daemons/Necrons (those are the combos I generally see).

As I said earlier. I honestly believe the best solution for any MEQ player is to take a PFG and abuse it. This helps vs Heldrakes and Daemons, both of which are the biggest MEQ threats in the game currently. Just keep in mind the squad formation that Shadar and Ailaros pointed out (I tend to like the zigzag better than the circle). I also recommend against too many transports, as they can actually make the Heldrakes more efficient if blown up (which isn't difficult to do if the player has allied in Cron destructors/flamers/screamers or taken Havoc squads)

 R3ds8n wrote:

 cormadepanda wrote:
Read thread. Read redundantly that only counters is space marine fliers, and or guard flies. Plays orks. Foot slogging orks. brings 25 auto cannons to the table as foot slogging orks. My face when i only been able to shoot down 2 fliers out of 8 games. Be sad when i hear a hell drake coming.. it just too perfect at killing ground. Amazed no one runs triple drake.

Untill then lads, orks are going to have a very hard day with those hell drakes.

Plenty of folk run triple drakes.

plenty of folks do run triple drakes, but that doesnt ensure they will win. Drakes are next to useless against true hordes, Teq, heavy tanks, dreadnaughts, MCs. They arent particularly good against fliers either.

so there is something that is very good at killing clumped up expensive Meq in cover, adapt.
as a DE player first I could complain all day about chimera walls, warwalkers, psiback spam, psyrifleman. Things that are extremely strong against my army but they arent totally broken and no matter how bad they get my army there are others that can get them.

Martel732 wrote:
Aren't the rules on the internet somewhere?

More than a few Tournaments require you to have the official GW rules/codexes to field models. Having the rule on the internet somewhere does not solve that problem.