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 Ascalam wrote:
Handy tip if you do buy one.

Paint it sectionally, then assemble.

Apparently it's a bit of a git to paint when fully assembled

This so much, it is honestly one of the worst things I have ever tried to paint once assembled.

 Ailaros wrote:

Godless-Mimicry wrote:under your logic 99% of the units in the game are unnecessary because the army has something else that could do the job.

Are you really going to say that a unit that only does one thing well makes the other 99% of the codex unnecessary?

Of course not, because we're not talking about something that does only one thing well we are talking about Heldrakes. You may act like it only kills MEQs well, but the rest of the thread is having a much different conversation if you didn't notice, because you are ignoring its other benefits. It can toast MEQ and light infantry with the Baleflamer, can negate cover with the Baleflamer, can ignore LOS with the Baleflamer, is hard to hit because of being a Flyer, can kill mech with its Vector Strike, can kill flyers with its Vector Strike, and can damage MCs quite a bit with its Vector Strike. Name another unit in the Codex that can do all that. You are thinking one of facet of its existence and even then thinking of it in the shallow light of kills alone, ignoring cover and LOS gives it additional maneuverability for instance. I'm not saying they are a must take, but you'll never see the benefit in anything you don't want to see it in if you ignore part of the appeal.

And as Kain said, it did change the meta, and that's a fact. And it has been around long enough to know it wasn't a knee-jerk reaction. So obviously it isn't as crap as you make it out to be.

As always, YMMV, but at least acknowledge all of its strong points before making that decision (unless you are trying to dislike really good units in which case there's nothing left to talk about).

Kain wrote: it will break open most transports like a tin can and then roast your tightly bunched infantry piling out.

Except it won't. Vector strike isn't that good. Assuming an average D3 roll of 2, that's an average of 1HP stripped off of a rhino per strike.

If you're opening transports up like a tin can, then you are being EXTREMELY lucky with your vector strikes.

In fact, others are grossly overstating what vector strike does as well. It's only slightly better than an autocannon, and it requires you to screw up the way you move your flier to do it (if you even have the turning arc to hit something at all).

With a more accurate understanding of what vector strike actually does here, you're left with a unit that is good against MEq, and decent against hordes (4 or 5 bale flamer hits against a foot guard player can be ignored without much effort), and can damage some other stuff poorly.

Which means you're spending nearly 200 points a pop for something that the stuff you were already taking does well.

Also, just because "the meta" is a bunch of lemmings groupthinking on the internet doesn't make them right about anything. Ad populum never flatters anyone.

Actaully it's 3. Vector strike is D3+1. So it should be something like 2 HP. And it's pretty good to glance other fliers.

Oh, you're right.

They should be stripping 1.5 hull points off of rhinos, if you can even angle your flier in that direction in the first place, and you're willing to move the flier out of position, and if you're willing to risk rear armor shots, and if the flier is even on the table at all that turn, and if they don't get sniped by interceptor fire before they have a chance to do anything, or are just plain old shot down...

... or you don't take any of the vastly superior anti-transport options in the codex.

Heldrakes are not hard to transport, just use magnets to make them fold up. I did that with my heldrake and was able to fit it into a quite small box and transport it safely.



I'm now transporting the model fully assembled. I glued some magnets under the base and have it parked on a metal sheet in my plastic toolbox right next to other vehicles.

I've used it in pretty much all CSM games I've played with sizes from 1500-3000 points. No doubt it has it's pros and cons like any other unit, but the heldrake hasn't failed yet to bring it's points home. Far from being worthless, even when the other player brought in a dakka yet, riptide or SM fliers. I only play it with the flamer.

Beyond the actual amount of infantry it fries, consider the distracting factor. Most players will try to bring the thing down, allowing your other heavy units to do their thing unmolested for half the game. My drake brought down dakka jets, the 2 point SM flier, the DA flier and wiped out whole units of infantry in one go. The best was a shocked unit of 10 DA knights with plasma all around being brought down to 8 by the vector strike, down to 3 by the flamer and then annihilated by plague zombies three inches away from where they were sitting on an objective in ruins.

Oh, one tip - be paranoid about not flaming after doing the vector strike in the moving phase, which stricktly speaking means you are skipping movement for all your other units.

Ailaros, I think you are missing the most important thing.

It looks damn K0oL!

Which means you're spending nearly 200 points a pop for something that the stuff you were already taking does well.

Who is still primarily gearing up to face MEQ? The most common armies are currently Xenos. Space Marines are usually seen as a way to make Guard blobs more potent and survivable. The remainder of your army should not be "doing the same thing."

Regardless, the Drake is good at more than ant-MEQ. Single wound models with a 3+ save or worse don't like facing them. Yes, you CAN spread out in theory. No, it doesn't always happen that way in game. It isn't tough for a Drake to take out 4+ models a turn, for 4+ turns. Just because it isn't AS GOOD against certain armies does not mean it isn't very good. The Helldrake changed the game. That alone speaks volumes.

Also, just because "the meta" is a bunch of lemmings groupthinking on the internet doesn't make them right about anything. Ad populum never flatters anyone.

Or you know, you could go to events and see that there are trends that constitute something akin to a meta. While it is possible to dispute an overarching "global 40k meta", it is nigh impossible to argue against tournament trends. Since lists are easily accessible online, it is easy for players to copy and paste.

You can argue that everyone is playing the game wrong til you are blue in the face. The important thing is, people ARE playing a certain way. If the Drake works against just about everyone, it is worth taking. I guess the OP will just have to concede if he/she is unfortunate enough to run into the mighty Aliros, who has figured out that Drakes suck and that we are all wrong in even considering them.

The rest of ther list always dictates what makes sense. But I can say truthfully: I am hard pressed to fins fault with ANYONE who ioncludes one.

I even bowed down and got one because it is such a strikingly good looking model. I dont even play my Chaos forces hardly, but its suuuuuch a great centerpiece.

But list is king. Buy thew anti-tank you need if thats what you NEED. Cause your heldrake wont impress three monoliths at all.

 Makutsu wrote:

BaconUprising wrote:
As a nid and DE player I really don't be much issues from them but I knew for almost any MEQ list they are a nightmare.

Considering the fact that it can also do D3 + 1 S7 AP3 ignore cover vector strikes, I don't see how DE that rely on cover and Nid MCs with 3+ armor save is not having issues.
But YMMV.

Heldrakes are just to good to not take, playing without them feels more like a handicap than anything else.

I'm also a DE player and I haven't had any issues facing drakes. Sure, they are scary looking and they certainly can wipe whole squads of marines at a go, but even with their 360 flamer its possible to reduce their threat quite a bit.

A simple example: in a recent game I used a cronos to threaten my opponents hq and a scoring unit. Over the course of two turns the cronos was vector striked twice, flamed twice and shot at by an obscene amount of lasguns. It didn't die while the rest of my army tore his scoring units apart.

I used to take razorwings in order to try and drop them. Now, I simply side step them.

The Helldrake is good enough to warrant a purchase and, have as an auto-include in all TAC lists. There are quite a few other units that can make that claim but, this thread is about the Helldrake.

I've fought against it 4 times as Eldar. Of those 4 times I wrecked or destroyed it 3 times. Of those 3, 2 of the battles were still a victory for me. That is because Eldar mobility or late deepstriking Warp Spiders can cut up its' rear armor.

However there are many things it can't handle:
Parking lot Imperial Guard tanks
Ork Boy skwads over 20 models
Belial Logan Draigo whatever Herohammer wing of Terminator troops
Any large squad in general that has had the Divination spell Forewarning cast on it (my usual counter). 4++ is usable against a baleflamer if they already spread out

 Jancoran wrote:
The rest of ther list always dictates what makes sense. But I can say truthfully: I am hard pressed to fins fault with ANYONE who ioncludes one.

I even bowed down and got one because it is such a strikingly good looking model. I dont even play my Chaos forces hardly, but its suuuuuch a great centerpiece.

But list is king. Buy thew anti-tank you need if thats what you NEED. Cause your heldrake wont impress three monoliths at all.

I agree that the drake looks good, but I always feel it needs just one minor alteration, the addittion of a tail. I never field them before I can model up a tail for them.

i dont view the helldrake as an insanely awesome unit, i view it as the easiest model to do what it does even if its not technically the best...just the safest so everyone flocks to it.

My friend has slowed luck with that things invul saves. I shot it with 3 Kannons, 10 Lootas, and even a 20man blob of boyz when they were looking at its butt. Caused enough damage to kill 4 of them...did 1 damage cuz he refused to fail a 5+ invul. This was 2 turns of that before he took out the lootas with it and i managed to take it out because a dakkajet got rear armor and my weirdboy WAAAGH!'d that turn.
I'd say its one of the hardest vehicles if not the hardest to take out, thats why its so safe.

To throw my 2 cents into the mix.

I love my heldrake, it was the biggest model i have ever painted, took me the longest time to paint and it looks awesome. It is my army center piece, which since the rest of it is just infantry i sorely needed something to look good.

Some useless anecdotal evidence:

I have used a single heldrake in 4 games:

Game 1: My Heldrake never came on...i could not pass a 3+, was an ugly ugly game..that i would rather not speak of *shudders*

Game 2: Vs Nids: He came on vector striked a flyrant got 3 hits but only 1 wound. Then got shot in the arse by the same flyrant and died.

Game 3: Vs old Eldar: Roasted harlequins, and vector striked a wraithlord, burned some big scaries, went into hover mode and helped clean up, survived the game....but old eldar...(they sucked)

Game 4: Vector striked a stormtalon, got 4 hits...YAY, but only 1 glance (4's to glance)..BOO. and only took one hullpoint off. Tanked a quad gun shot, regenerated the hull point...YAY Then was shot in the arse by 2 storm talons and exploded. BOO

So apart from some flimsy old eldar, i am yet to have a stellar game with it, but dayum does it look cool, and everyone is terrified of it.



O and for the love of whatever deity you worship....paint before you assemble, it was a nightmare trying to get my brush into the tiny tiny spaces.

My answer:

Yes!

 Ailaros wrote:

Kain wrote: it will break open most transports like a tin can and then roast your tightly bunched infantry piling out.

Except it won't. Vector strike isn't that good. Assuming an average D3 roll of 2, that's an average of 1HP stripped off of a rhino per strike.

It's D3+1, as far as I remember. Which means that in average you have 3 attacks, not 2 (not sure if you took that in account).
With 1 Helldrake you have about 16,7% to destroy a Rhino with a penetrating it, while with 2 Helldrakes on average you destroy one Rhino per turn (with 2 pens and 1 glance). And 2 helldrakes is quite common as a choice.

That said, I believe that what he meant is that vector strikes HELPS in opening transport. Maybe it will need some help from anti-tank weaponry, the fact is that first you damage the transport, then it roasts the troops inside it (with a bit of luck you could wipe an entire squad with one shot...). Such an easy kill is a pretty nice advantage...

In fact, others are grossly overstating what vector strike does as well. It's only slightly better than an autocannon, and it requires you to screw up the way you move your flier to do it (if you even have the turning arc to hit something at all).

Well, thanks to how torrent works (12" range, template, with the ability to turn it like you wish) it doesn't happen that often.
And there are plenty of units on the battlefield, most of the time you don't really need to vector strike THAT unit and baleflame THOSE one. It is likely that there are two or more viable targets for either the vector strike or the baleflamer.

Which means you're spending nearly 200 points a pop for something that the stuff you were already taking does well.

You are spending 170 points for something that is good at killing MEQs. There are plenty of units that do that, but most of the time:
1. They have lower damage output (e.g. 5 havocs with 4 autocannons)
2. They cost more (e.g: Some nasty HQ + its unit, such as Huron or Abaddon)
3. Both (Noise Marines. I do love them, especially the blastmaster. But 240+ points for 2 blasts that could scatter against d3+1 autohits and a template with torrent moving up to 36" for 170 points... do you really think that noise marines are more point effective for what regards their damage output? and i'm speaking about the damage output alone)

There may be more point-effective ways of killing marines than the Helldrake (even if I can't think of it right now), but there are not that many. And if you find them, it's unlikely that they have the same mobility. And even with the same mobility, what else requires the opponent to have skyfire to take it down efficiently?
Not to mention daemonforge AND It Will Not Die.
If all CSM units were as cost-effective as the Helldrake than it would be the best codex in the game. Unluckily, most units are quite the opposite (just the fact that you need a land raider to assault at turn speaks for itself...)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Steffo wrote:


Game 1: My Heldrake never came on...i could not pass a 3+, was an ugly ugly game..that i would rather not speak of *shudders*

Game 2: Vs Nids: He came on vector striked a flyrant got 3 hits but only 1 wound. Then got shot in the arse by the same flyrant and died.

Game 4: Vector striked a stormtalon, got 4 hits...YAY, but only 1 glance (4's to glance)..BOO. and only took one hullpoint off. Tanked a quad gun shot, regenerated the hull point...YAY Then was shot in the arse by 2 storm talons and exploded. BOO

Said like this seems that you never used its Baleflamer...

 Badablack wrote:

Can't hold objectives - wrong! as a flier with hover mode, and a fast attack choice, it can do so in 'the scouring'.
Can't tank shock enemies - wrong! it has hover mode, so can become a skimmer, so can actually tank-shock!

it's a pretty effective unit, it would have been so much more awesome if they'd made it a flying-walker, so allowing close combat.

the big problem with them is that the FAQ saying 'you can fire the gun like a turret' is useless, as the heavy bolter on the front of a landraider is a turret, and has a 45 degree fire arc, and the leman russ turret has 360.

Skimmers can't tank shock unless they also have the Tank classification some bloke.

And Badablack was joking in that post you responded to.

 Ailaros wrote:
Which means you're spending nearly 200 points a pop for something that the stuff you were already taking does well.

Except the stuff people are already taking isn't good at what the Heldrake does because no matter how many times you say it, competitive lists do not take units like Thousand Sons or the others you mentioned as alternatives.

 Ailaros wrote:
Also, just because "the meta" is a bunch of lemmings groupthinking on the internet doesn't make them right about anything. Ad populum never flatters anyone.

When someone says, "it's not me, it's everybody else" that's the signal to stop listening to them. Self-importance doesn't flatter anyone either.

And as JGrand said, whether people are right or wrong doesn't change what is happening in reality. Though I imagine there's a lot to learn from looking at what these 'lemmings' are doing instead of getting on a high horse and saying they are all wrong and you alone are right seemingly just out of principle (based on the lists you normally seem to take).

But whatever, this discussion is obviously a fruitless task given that we are all just incorrect lemmings in your eyes.

Taking 2 helldrakes gives you some excellent match ups.

Unless your going with a fluffy CSM list, there is not many reasons you would not wnat to bring 2 of them.

To all the helldrake doubters: the helldrake is the ONLY reason I bring a Stormraven in my TAC list. I play the weak BA and I'm telling you that I feel that the CSM are fairly manageable if they don't have double and triple helldrakes running around. So these other "anti-meq" schemes are not impressing me.

My BA could often outduel the old 4th edition CSM codex at long range with fast autolas preds and las cannon razorbacks. I feel that the CSM are back in the same boat without the helldrake. This isn't even getting into an anti-meq horror show list like Eldar or Tau.

I certainly plan to get a Heldrake one day, but I agree with Ailaros almost point for point on why the Heldrake isn't an auto include. Of course being that it is such a versatile unit it is no wonder it is highly recommended by the masses.

 Kain wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
The rest of ther list always dictates what makes sense. But I can say truthfully: I am hard pressed to fins fault with ANYONE who ioncludes one.

I even bowed down and got one because it is such a strikingly good looking model. I dont even play my Chaos forces hardly, but its suuuuuch a great centerpiece.

But list is king. Buy thew anti-tank you need if thats what you NEED. Cause your heldrake wont impress three monoliths at all.

I agree that the drake looks good, but I always feel it needs just one minor alteration, the addittion of a tail. I never field them before I can model up a tail for them.

I saw one at the tourney I ran on Saturday. It was the Warhammer Fantasy elf Dragon with a long turbine on its back. Lol.

That torrent fire is very nice. Not to mention the model itself looks great.

In the age of Aegishammer, they are, like Manticores for an IG player, necessary.

They give you something that can hit units behind an Aegis reliably and offer them no saving throw, at a reasonable price. Sure...you can assault those units with Spawn, or you can charge them with CSM, but none of those options give you the cost effectiveness and efficiency of the Heldrake.

2 is good at 1,500 pts, but you will probably want 3 above that. For the price, they are absolutely fantastic. People may have their own personal reasons for shunning them, but their popularity is no accident.

Diablix wrote:

Steffo wrote:


Game 1: My Heldrake never came on...i could not pass a 3+, was an ugly ugly game..that i would rather not speak of *shudders*

Game 2: Vs Nids: He came on vector striked a flyrant got 3 hits but only 1 wound. Then got shot in the arse by the same flyrant and died.

Game 4: Vector striked a stormtalon, got 4 hits...YAY, but only 1 glance (4's to glance)..BOO. and only took one hullpoint off. Tanked a quad gun shot, regenerated the hull point...YAY Then was shot in the arse by 2 storm talons and exploded. BOO

Said like this seems that you never used its Baleflamer...

Yea you are right about that, Game 1 was out of my hands since the lazy bugger just didn't come on. It was all over by turn 5.

Game 2: I think i was expecting some skycrons and had the hades autocannon, but got Nidz. But even baleflaming some gribblies while vector striking the flyrant wouldn't have changed much. I was unlucky not to kill the flyrant, i only need 1 more wound, he wasn't iron armed.

Game 4: I was also unlucky not to kill a 2 HP stormtalon, but also due to my ignorance only thought it could move 24 inches, so i didn't baleflame a tactical squad on a quad gun, instead settled for a terminator squad (the only one in range). I also didn't baleflame that squad because coteaz out the front of the unit (2+ saves to tank the hits).....but we also didn't realise coteaz wasn't battle brothers with space marines...lol well i did mention is was useless anecdotal evidence.

So when i get the rules right...and position it right i am sure it will do awesome.