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They are 75 points cheaper then a normal squad of Hydras. Forgot a word lol.

easysauce wrote:
I dont know how to counter the helldrakes aside from sinking tonnes of points and $ into allying guard with vendettas...

other day I tabled a guy by top of turn 2 save for his two helldrakes and a forge fiend...

the hell drakes then destroyed 1500pts worth of a 1700 pt army by themselves, unmolested, despite psycannons, two psyflemen, precience...

happens every time I play chaos too, the chickens win the game every time,

needs a point increase for sure, way too effective for the cost

so wait, You killed his entire army somehow, in two turns and then got stalled on two flyers?... and its the flyers that are broken?

Valek wrote:Sorry, but the one suggesting Hydras here obviously thinks that the tripple helldrake player will not have oblits to kill those hydras, and hb do not penetrate av12...

If your opponent is bringing three helldrakes and enough obliterators to shut down a hydra squad before it has the chance to take down the fliers, then your opponent is throwing down, what 800+ points on this?

What else does he have in his list? Just play to the mission and kill your opponent's scoring units. Furthermore, you're talking about a guard player bringing 225 points to hard counter 800 points of stuff. What happens when the guard player brings two hydra squads? or an ADL with an icarus?

Plus, once again, there's the fieldcraft issue. If the guard player is bubble wrapping the hydras, just how will the obliterators kill them off? If the guard player spreads out, just how many casualties are those helldrakes really causing?

And, I'd like to note, hydras have more than just heavy bolters to shoot at fliers...

davou wrote:

so wait, You killed his entire army somehow, in two turns and then got stalled on two flyers?... and its the flyers that are broken?

my list is alpha strike, so thirty GK interceptors w psybolts and cannons all unloading into his 20 marines, + CC 2nd turn, and a bunch of 36"+ stuff to finish off

he could have backed up units, but chose to charge MEQ's and spawns into my grey knights, so tactically he did exactly what I wanted, force weapon ap3s minced that, and we are left with a table that has 1600pts of GK's and a hellbrute, and 2x chickens

then those two units proceed to destroy my whole army, despite me having the best AA in the GK codex, taken in triplicate...

normally i get my @$$ handed to me by this guy and his army, I got lucky this time and he made mistakes,
normally he has lost next to nothing and I am tabled

so yes, helldrakes are either OP or too cheap

Thanks for all the input guys, definately going to take this to the table. I didn't think about spreading out with the infantry. I think im going to bite the bullet and try to pick up some vendettas over the course of time. I think its interesting that Valek called it on the dot, he does bring two or three oblits.

That's what Oblits are for. Kill tanks.

Havocs with Autocannons kill the transports.

Hell Drakes kill the troops.

Xadakk wrote: I didn't think about spreading out with the infantry.

Welcome to foot guard, young paduan. The force is strong with those who displace.

For Vanilla Marines we now have a cheap flyer that can smack a Heldrake out of the sky that is also BS 5 against ground targets. We also have a big, albeit expensive flyer that is brisling with guns and is tough to shoot down. Quick question, whats the stats on a skyhammer missile launcher? guess it has skyfire?

easysauce wrote:
I dont know how to counter the helldrakes aside from sinking tonnes of points and $ into allying guard with vendettas...

other day I tabled a guy by top of turn 2 save for his two helldrakes and a forge fiend...

the hell drakes then destroyed 1500pts worth of a 1700 pt army by themselves, unmolested, despite psycannons, two psyflemen, precience...

happens every time I play chaos too, the chickens win the game every time,

heldrakes can only possibly come in on turn 2, so you are saying that you had 1500 points of expensive 3+ armor save stuff in 2 nicely clumped tear dropped bunches? A collosus or hell even a battle cannon could have done the same thing.

 Ailaros wrote:

Xadakk wrote: I didn't think about spreading out with the infantry.

Welcome to foot guard, young paduan. The force is strong with those who displace.

Most helpful thing i have seen so far, do you just run Inf Platoons or do you also take vet squads

Xadakk wrote:do you just run Inf Platoons or do you also take vet squads

I've tried a bunch of stuff so far in 6th. Probably the two things I liked the most were maxed out grenadiers vets with stormtroopers (say hello to my 100 carapace armor guardsmen), and my time with infinitely-respawning SitNW conscripts.

Having tried basically every way I can think of of seriously running a foot guard list, my best advice to you is go buy some chimeras.

... at least, until the next guard codex or rules edition comes out.

I have 5 chimeras ATM but seriously lacking in the Plasma Gun category. Plenty of standard bodies though. I have played a few games and i used to do fine before the Helldrakes but now those things just wipe my infantry off the board and vector strike any Transports i have to death.

 Xadakk wrote:
I have 5 chimeras ATM but seriously lacking in the Plasma Gun category. Plenty of standard bodies though. I have played a few games and i used to do fine before the Heldrakes but now those things just wipe my infantry off the board and vector strike any Transports i have to death.

The 360 degree turret on the Heldrake is a gakker. You can't even out-manoeuvre the damn things now.

Displacement is key, but with 3 Heldrakes, displacement will only do so much. Vendettas are a hard-counter. My old gaming group had a player with a Nurgle list containing 3 Heldrakes in a 1750pt list. Vendettas sort them out nicely. He had trouble holding objectives too. If you can focus down troops you can comfortably win, even without Vendettas.

 Exergy wrote:

heldrakes can only possibly come in on turn 2, so you are saying that you had 1500 points of expensive 3+ armor save stuff in 2 nicely clumped tear dropped bunches? A collosus or hell even a battle cannon could have done the same thing.

um yeah, they come in turn 2, got 5 turns of unmolestable killing, despite me having the best AA in the GK codex, true I can take yet another psyfle man, but its still going to miss 90% of the time, and if it hits, it still has to pen/glance, get through invulnerable saves or jink, AND not get rengerated...

i spread out, cover is useless, armour is useless, I even had the 4+ INV SAVE from divination, which save lots of guys, but I cant do anything to protect anyone else

but by turn 6 thats 10 templates that auto hit, re rollable wound on 2+, and deadl (except for the one unit that had the 4+ from divination)
so even if each template only kills 3 dudes, im screwed

not to mention vector strikes...

easysauce wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

heldrakes can only possibly come in on turn 2, so you are saying that you had 1500 points of expensive 3+ armor save stuff in 2 nicely clumped tear dropped bunches? A collosus or hell even a battle cannon could have done the same thing.

um yeah, they come in turn 2, got 5 turns of unmolestable killing, despite me having the best AA in the GK codex, true I can take yet another psyfle man, but its still going to miss 90% of the time, and if it hits, it still has to pen/glance, get through invulnerable saves or jink, AND not get rengerated...

i spread out, cover is useless, armour is useless, I even had the 4+ INV SAVE from divination, which save lots of guys, but I cant do anything to protect anyone else

but by turn 6 thats 10 templates that auto hit, re rollable wound on 2+, and deadl (except for the one unit that had the 4+ from divination)
so even if each template only kills 3 dudes, im screwed

not to mention vector strikes...

and you couldnt kill his forgefiend?

Because Drakes are such an issue, and so common, I decided to write an article about countering them. Each army has some options, but battling Drakes takes a combination of list building and good movement.

Check it out if you are interested.

http://rhetorical40k.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/tactics-what-will-you-do-about-drakes/

That was very helpful, thanks for the post.

 Exergy wrote:

and you couldnt kill his forgefiend?

it got lucky and regened/invulned a lot of HP's back/away

easysauce wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

and you couldnt kill his forgefiend?

it got lucky and regened/invulned a lot of HP's back/away

if something gets lucky that way you are going to lose. My first game of 6th I went up against a cron air list with 8 flyers and I had no skyfire. I got lucky and rolled a lot of 6s to hit, pen, and blow up and won handily when he conceded with some wraiths a losing combat and 2 regular scythes left. He was toast. You have to detach yourself from crazy lucky rolling. A forgefiend can be unkillable if he keeps rolling that 5++, that doesnt make them broken. If you rolled particularly badly shooting at the heldrakes dont fret. For every 20 psycannon shots you put into a heldrake and get nothing somewhere else you will get a hit, pen, explode result.

i think you are missing the point,

me= need to get lucky, roll a 6 then a 5+ then pass a 5++ and regenerates on 5+ each turn

him= auto hit, 2+ rerollable to wound, and im 100% dead

his flyer is anaethma to my AA sources

my codex AA sources are very unlikely to hurt his flyer

one drake is 170pts i think,

one squad of my best AA is 365 pts (4 psycannons in a squad with a inquisitor with re rolls to hit)

he will kill out right, even with best spaceing, 4-8 guys a turn from baleflamer and vector strikes (conservatively)

i get my 16 shots, say 5-6 hit (being generous), then 1-2 will pen/glance, and lets say he gets rid of one through save and regen, so i end up strippin one HP a turn

turn 2, I have 3 guys left, asssuming all pyscannons still, and I do even better then last turn, drake loses another HP

then he wipes my unit


even if i add 270 points for two psyfle men shooting at it, 8 shots, lets say 4 hit (again, wayy more tehn statistical) and 2 pen/glance, and it fails both the save, and has not regenned any HP from before,

then i have invested 635 pts to kill a 170 pt model, in two turns, and still lost 140-180 pts of my own models to it

easysauce wrote:
i think you are missing the point,

me= need to get lucky, roll a 6 then a 5+ then pass a 5++ and regenerates on 5+ each turn

him= auto hit, 2+ rerollable to wound, and im 100% dead

his flyer is anaethma to my AA sources

my codex AA sources are very unlikely to hurt his flyer

the forgefeinds dont literaly kill my whole army, the drakes do,
even if the fiend died, my army is still losing 1500+ pts to 340pts worth of models, every single game,

so either the drake is far too good, or the AA is far too bad

no you need to kill his forgefiend as that is the only thing on the table that can even contest. Then you need to protect your warlord, get something in his deployment zone, and try to keep 1 scoring unit on an objective. You win by 3.

Exergy's right. This game isn't mindless killing if you are trying to win. The heldrake's biggest strength is removing scoring units from the game. That's why it so fearsome. If it were just hard to kill, it wouldn't be so potent.

Yeah - everyone concentrating on Flyers saying "They're hard to kill!" - so what? While his ability to control the board is now greater than yours, that doesn't mean that the only way to win is to kill all of his units.

ummm... yeah i tried to kill the forge feind, i had all three objectives with troops on it in cover

which means nothing to drakes,

by that time we have had 6 baleflamer templates killing things, by then the feinds had killed my dreads too

if i had killed it I would have won,

but despite my warlord having 30+ guys to have to burn through, ( he moved from squad to squad as tehy were decimated) and a chimera, all that was killed in turn, and then the warlord killed

any way you cut it, a drake WILL 100% kill 5-8 marines a turn, nothing but an invul will stop it, aside from shooting the damn thing down

marines, will not kill a drake a turn, despite being more points

Fight cheese with cheese, Sabre defense platforms.

Martel732 wrote:
Exergy's right. This game isn't mindless killing if you are trying to win. The heldrake's biggest strength is removing scoring units from the game. That's why it so fearsome. If it were just hard to kill, it wouldn't be so potent.

yes, the heldrake is tough. Yes the heldrake is good at killing Meq scoring units in cover.

The Heldrake is game changing in that it is a flyer that can target infantry, and do it well.
The heldrake is NOT game breaking though. They are expensive and mitagatable

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Fight cheese with cheese, Sabre defense platforms.

what are the rules for sabres? intercept + skyfire?

what armies take them?

cause right now, I have to ally in effective AA because ignoring Air is not an option for an MEQ army against drakes.

so far the hydra platforms from forgeworld look ok, but id beintersted in the sabre

They are for imperial guard, at 50 points you can get twin linked lascannons with skyfire and intercepter.

easysauce wrote:
ummm... yeah i tried to kill the forge feind, i had all three objectives with troops on it in cover

which means nothing to drakes,

by that time we have had 6 baleflamer templates killing things, by then the feinds had killed my dreads too

if i had killed it I would have won,

but despite my warlord having 30+ guys to have to burn through, ( he moved from squad to squad as tehy were decimated) and a chimera, all that was killed in turn, and then the warlord killed

any way you cut it, a drake WILL 100% kill 5-8 marines a turn, nothing but an invul will stop it, aside from shooting the damn thing down

marines, will not kill a drake a turn, despite being more points

How did 1 forgefined kill multiple psyrifleman dreads? Psyrifleman are better than forgefineds and cost less and you had multiple. You cannot beat luck, but dont complain about luck.

how did he kill your warlord, doesnt everything HG in the GK book have a 2+ save? Most are T4 as well so they would have to fail multiple 2+ saves.

The vector strike will hit 3, the flame template will hit 4, 1 of those will fail to wound so lets say 6 marines a turn, IF you let it swipe and flame you. With its movement restrictions you should be able to prevent it from doing one or both on most turns if you are trying.

GK can take terminators as troops, without any special HQ. Those are scoring units that a heldrake cannot touch. GK can take landraiders, a unit that heldrakes cannot touch. GK can take dreadknights, a unit that heldrakes cannot touch that can run around and knock CSM scoring units off objectives nearly as effectively as a heldrake.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
They are for imperial guard, at 50 points you can get twin linked lascannons with skyfire and intercepter.

damn thats nice... ill have to try some out, sounds like just the ticket


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Exergy wrote:

easysauce wrote:
ummm... yeah i tried to kill the forge feind, i had all three objectives with troops on it in cover

which means nothing to drakes,

by that time we have had 6 baleflamer templates killing things, by then the feinds had killed my dreads too

if i had killed it I would have won,

but despite my warlord having 30+ guys to have to burn through, ( he moved from squad to squad as tehy were decimated) and a chimera, all that was killed in turn, and then the warlord killed

any way you cut it, a drake WILL 100% kill 5-8 marines a turn, nothing but an invul will stop it, aside from shooting the damn thing down

marines, will not kill a drake a turn, despite being more points

How did 1 forgefined kill multiple psyrifleman dreads? Psyrifleman are better than forgefineds and cost less and you had multiple. You cannot beat luck, but dont complain about luck.

how did he kill your warlord, doesnt everything HG in the GK book have a 2+ save? Most are T4 as well so they would have to fail multiple 2+ saves.

The vector strike will hit 3, the flame template will hit 4, 1 of those will fail to wound so lets say 6 marines a turn, IF you let it swipe and flame you. With its movement restrictions you should be able to prevent it from doing one or both on most turns if you are trying.

GK can take terminators as troops, without any special HQ. Those are scoring units that a heldrake cannot touch. GK can take landraiders, a unit that heldrakes cannot touch. GK can take dreadknights, a unit that heldrakes cannot touch that can run around and knock CSM scoring units off objectives nearly as effectively as a heldrake.

he had two maulerfieds, i killed one already,

your severly under estimating the drakes effectiveness vs MEQ i think
coteaz is only t3, and 6 marines a turn? sorry but a torrent template WILL cover more then 4 guys most of the time, and rerollable 2+ to wound is not going to fail 25% of the time, vector strike will also KILL on a 2+ so 3 marines average a turn from vector strike, 4-5 a turn from flame, at least, assuming I have the luxery of spacing 30 guys out 2" apart in a totally empty board.

he had 20 CSM, lord on juggernaught, full spawn squad, two feinds, 20 cultists, and some crazy lvl 3 psyker, 2 drakes

terminators, while effective against this specfific army, and how i counter CSM when i have the luxery of list tailoring,
but they are a worse pick for the current meta for a TAC tourny list, everyone spams plasma/melta ect

it just comes down to the meta of ignoring flyers doesnt apply to drakes, so I either leave my list as it, where if I play a list with 2+ drake's I auto lose,

or I sub in some forgeworld turrets, which Is likely the best option.