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Ok so to start off with, I have never played the CSM Codex 3.5 ed. I started wargaming with 40k in 2007 as CSM, and I started CSM because they looked awesome and as I read the Fluff of the Army I ended up really liking them.

Now after was supposedly the horrendous edition of 4th (which to a degree I agree as I did not want to field Plague Marines every game) we got the 6th edition Codex.

This codex I must admit, has been a copy and paste 4th ed. codex with a hint of Slannesh coming in from the backside, It still is "Load up on the plague marines in rhinos" then the new addition was "now instead of your now even weaker DP (which I really was unhappy about since I loved using my old metal DP every game) with LoS, Load up on the Noise Marines" so still a strong Slannesh vibe going on, and then came the Helldrake.

Now to start off with, I know the Helldrake is powerful, I understand that the Baleflamer is really good. My problem is that it really is not as powerful as it once was, when the Codex was first released it was the Meta breaker that gave them the image, which I understand as it was. Now run past a few months and a lot more armies have now got tools to deal with them, the most common one is the ADL with Interceptor, but there are other weapons now for other army which can take them out en example of which is majority of armies now have access to flyers, which technically have Skyfire as they can fire at other fliers at full BS and some army's have even more access (in forms of upgrades) to Skyfire and Interceptor, even volume of fire is great now such as the Anni barges for Necrons for example. My point is that Helldrakes are strong but not OP like they used to be, there are now many ways of taking out the Helldrake before it makes too much damage, hell in one game against the new Eldar A wave serpent made one of my Helldrakes on full HP explode before it had a chance to fire at anything (and yes all his stuff were in transports and I could not fire at them as he made his cover saves when I Vector Striked).

When I am on Dakka I am constantly reading on "how OP the Turkey is" and tbh its now kinda just grinding my gears, because its not, its really not and considering that CSM are not really that powerful (even Plague Marines and Noise Marines, its still an hard game), tbh I never really wanted any Helldrake, Sure I like the daemoncly possessed dragon, but I would happily trade that for a Dreadclaw drop pod unit entry in the Codex any day of the week. For the record I use two Helldrakes, not because of the power level, but because I like the Idea of a daemon Skyrim Dragon flying about breathing fire everywhere. Yes I know about every army gets their portion of whiners about certain stuff in them but even with the new stuff emerging we are still hearing on how one unit is penalised "OP" and this is one unit that makes the CSM an alright army at best.

So are there any other CSM players who also are getting tired of the same old "Helldrake is bad any you should field bad for using it!" story?

Cheers to all comments

No. Bash 'em more. They are stupidly broken and OP. The designer clearly watched a Godzilla marathon while making it and was in the mood.

That said, I have one . Because firebreathing pterosaur coupled with its rules means I'd be slowed not to.

I don't use Heldrakes in my army and I do fine without them, in fact people bring things to the table just to deal with a non existent threat in case i bring one with me.

The reason people are still complaining is because the primary targets of the Heldrake (MEQ) still haven't got reliable TAC ways to deal with them. The Heldrake was the beginning of the decline of the MEQ armies that dominated in 5th edition, and it still kicks them in the nuts.

I think it's more the spamming then anything. Anyone who has ever played against a 3 helldrake army will agree, it sucks.

I run 2 as well, 1 flamer and 1 cannon an and people seem to forget that they aren't that overpowered when you fluff reserve rolls and they don't come on til turn 4

All the things mentioned above about "dealing with the Heldrake" apply just as easily to other flyers, say the Dark Angels or Tau ones (incl. their vulnerability to reserve-rolls), who do less and usually cost more, have less armour, no It Will Not Die, no convenient 360-degree fire-arc, etc.. .

So relatively, the Heldrake is still at a (too) strong advantage.

More effective anti-air-things across more armies, by themselves, are no solution. If anti-air capacities across the board are good enough to take out 3+ Heldrakes reliably, it'll mean most other flyers are downright useless.

The fix needs to be introduced in a way that Heldrakes, in generalist-lists, are less of a no-brainers, while still keeping .... say .. a Tau Flyer or a Dark Angels Dark Talon an attractive unit choice.

I think that because the Helldrake is so anti-MEQ it gets a lot of hate. But with the new C:SM coming with not one but two AA tanks, I believe their will be less hateing.

Imperial Deceit wrote:
I think that because the Helldrake is so anti-MEQ it gets a lot of hate. But with the new C:SM coming with not one but two AA tanks, I believe their will be less hateing.

This... especially if you are running more than one drake right now it is rather obnoxious; but with some anti-air support hopefully in the future it will be riskier to field too many.

Im with you, i play heldrakes, i play agaisnt heldrakes. There a good unit but I would never complain about how o pthey are. The only thing I might do is bump there points to 175-180 thats it.

Here's the problem with the heldrake as I see it:

You have an AV12 vehicle that flies. Right there, it's a tough competitor, but not invincible and definitely within reason.

Now it has a Str6 AP3 flamer. Well that's a pretty nasty weapon, but ok, area terrain or toss myself in a building. I can accept a lesser save. Oh. It ignores cover. Ok... well it's just one strong flamer, if I position myself well, I'll probably only eat one of them. Oh, it has torrent... so it's effective range is 36 move + 8 inches in any direction. Ok this is a tough customer, but hey, if I devote a good number of shots to it some have to get through. Oh, it's armor 12, so need at least str6. Ok, well that's not too bad, plenty of things can get that. And hey, quadgun isn't a bad option. We can make this work. Oh it has a 5++. But hey, I wounded it and dealt a hullpoint! awesome! Except it also has It Will Not Die.

And now there's more than one of them.

And now I'm on fire. And so is my quadgun. And so is 1/2 my army.

Who. In the hell. Designed this damn thing.

The problem with the heldrake isn't that it is tough, or that it's shooting potential is exceptionally useful, far ranging, and powerful. The problem with the heldrake is that it has *all* of these things, plus the capability to just ignore a majority of the issues other platforms that have these things. Notwithstanding on the vector strikes.

People are saying it's anti MEQ, but that just means it's even more anti everything else that doesn't have that 3+ save and relies on the cover saves and other tricks for their durability.

Is it endurable? Yes. Is it completely and utterly broken? No more than a number of other things in 40k, which does not have the best balance to begin with.

But, more importantly, is it bad design? You bet ya.

That right there is the major complant of the Helldrake, it's not OP provided it is the right cost. Not a lot of people complain about the Stormraven being OP because it clocks in at 200 pts base.

I've found that in general, Marine players tend to be really whiney about anything that can outright ignore their armour save...

They pay big for that save.

Experiment 626 wrote:
I've found that in general, Marine players tend to be really whiney about anything that can outright ignore their armour save...

That's because every army does ignore their armour save.
But hey, at least they can take a cover save, right? No, because the new codices ignore that too!

Experiment 626 wrote:
I've found that in general, Marine players tend to be really whiney about anything that can outright ignore their armour save...

I am starting to agree with you tbh, im not branding all marine players as "Whiners" but there are a fare share amongst Dakka imo, if Thousand sons were cheaper they bout be branded OP as well I guess..

The fact is as I have mentioned there are multiple ways of taking down the drake, its really is just another flyer, yeah, yeah its has a 5+ Inv, yet 5+ is quite hard to achieve so that really is no excuse, Deathwing do great against them GK paladins do great against them, because they shrug off the Baleflamer, Tau... Well Tau.. MEQ? bring a skyshield landing pad, yup its a 4+ Inv you get and its area is quite large as well just enough to fit majority of troops on it, again no excuse, imho. Does it have AV12 why yes it does but then again that can be penetrated just like any other flyer such as the SR and Vendetta.

Its the fact that whenever someone brings at least one Helldrake they get branded and tarred with a brush as the most WAAC TFG ever to have lived that I commonly see on Dakka, (and our codex could and should be in a better state than it is now imo, we did not receive any new tricks like the two latest armies had (such as Battle Focus and Supporting fire) which changed the playstyle of the armies, ours did not change much, or for the better either), I am a casual gamer, I use warp Talons (*GASP* someone that uses Talons?) and I have played against Gunline Tau with Warp Talons in my army and I won as well, did I use the Helldrakes? Oh yeah sure, did they die before they did any damage? you bet ya . I am now getting sick of people just tarring every CSM player with the "WAAC" brush, that is one of the major points I am trying to get across, because I know im not yet if I take one Helldrake here apparently Im a WAAC TFG. Our codex Is nowhere as good as other SM codex's yet were are getting the most hate at this current time, to which I say if we didn't have the Helldrake would people complain about CSM? no they wouldn't in fact they would love CSM as they could curb stomp them quite easily, if we didn't have the Helldrake we would just be a 4th ed. to 6th ed. update C+P job, its one unit that stops us from becoming that.

The Hellturkey was OP when it came out because, due to the nature of how GW updates it's armies, it basically left a whole bunch of armies (including the most popular SM ones), with no easy way to counter them.

Going forward, they will become less and less OP, as armies get updated and get access to their own flyers and anti-air tools.

Zweischneid made good points though, they are, for their points, better than the other flyers out there right now. As such, while they'll probably eventually not be considered OP, they'll still be considered the best flyer out there.

DogofWar1 wrote:
The Hellturkey was OP when it came out because, due to the nature of how GW updates it's armies, it basically left a whole bunch of armies (including the most popular SM ones), with no easy way to counter them.

Going forward, they will become less and less OP, as armies get updated and get access to their own flyers and anti-air tools.

Zweischneid made good points though, they are, for their points, better than the other flyers out there right now. As such, while they'll probably eventually not be considered OP, they'll still be considered the best flyer out there.

I also agree that the Helldrake was OP when it was realeased and I agree that they are getting less and less OP, I am not denying that they are a strong unit, what I am denying is that they are OP as they once were.

I would argue that the Vendetta is better for its points, but I guess we all agree to disagree

The helldrake has issues, but they are not issues that the old 0-1 rule or a points increase could not fix.

As for marine players being whiney? The truth is that all players tend to whine when their army is in the down-curve. The difference is that xenos players get more used to the abuse because they traditionally are more likely to see it (at least since 4th ed.).

But the Helldrake shouldn't have been OP in the first place. A single unit shouldn't force entire codex to need an update to fight it off.

The heldrake does not fly alone, it belongs to the CSM army and should be seen in that context.

My feeling after playing quite some games for which I fielded one (1) heldrake, is that the army needs all the extra juice the drake can offer.
The heldrake may be more powerful than other fliers, but a lot of units in the dex are weaker or more expensive than loyalist counterparts.

Example: An Adeptus Sororitas player asked me if I could play without the drake against him. Isolated to the drake and him not having anti-air, that seemed resonable and I followed his request. On the other hand, his 75 or so cans with loads of melters and flamers fried everything else I could bring easily, destroying a Land Raider, Defiler and Vindicator like blow-up replicas and neatly ignored my cover saves.

I'm sure that playing against 2-3 drakes can be annoying, but note that 3 @ 525 pts is the max, compared to 6 croissants for a few points more total.

That said, the question is always what kind of game you are playing. Playing maximum cheese in a friendly game doesn't strike me like a good idea.

Imperial Deceit wrote:
But the Helldrake shouldn't have been OP in the first place. A single unit shouldn't force entire codex to need an update to fight it off.

We are talking about GW here, where everything is unbalanced... for example while I agree they should not have been OP in the first place, this goes with every codex, Vendettas should not have been undercosted, GK 5th ed. should not have been apparently OP, Tau should not have had the majority of shooty options they have, Helldrakes should not have been undercosted, Tervigon's should have been expensive and all other MC should have been cheaper, Eldar should not have gotten Battle Focus, SW Long fangs should have been more expensive and Choppy units should have been cheaper, as well as Jaws would have needed a nerf, etc, etc. we are not just talking about one army here we are talking about multiple armies should have had units that should have been nerfed, or costed exactly right, but this is G*moneybags*W so that's why we us players are in this position.

 happygolucky wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
I've found that in general, Marine players tend to be really whiney about anything that can outright ignore their armour save...

I am starting to agree with you tbh, im not branding all marine players as "Whiners" but there are a fare share amongst Dakka imo, if Thousand sons were cheaper they bout be branded OP as well I guess..

The fact is as I have mentioned there are multiple ways of taking down the drake, its really is just another flyer, yeah, yeah its has a 5+ Inv, yet 5+ is quite hard to achieve so that really is no excuse, Deathwing do great against them GK paladins do great against them, because they shrug off the Baleflamer, Tau... Well Tau.. MEQ? bring a skyshield landing pad, yup its a 4+ Inv you get and its area is quite large as well just enough to fit majority of troops on it, again no excuse, imho. Does it have AV12 why yes it does but then again that can be penetrated just like any other flyer such as the SR and Vendetta.

Its the fact that whenever someone brings at least one Helldrake they get branded and tarred with a brush as the most WAAC TFG ever to have lived that I commonly see on Dakka, (and our codex could and should be in a better state than it is now imo, we did not receive any new tricks like the two latest armies had (such as Battle Focus and Supporting fire) which changed the playstyle of the armies, ours did not change much, or for the better either), I am a casual gamer, I use warp Talons (*GASP* someone that uses Talons?) and I have played against Gunline Tau with Warp Talons in my army and I won as well, did I use the Helldrakes? Oh yeah sure, did they die before they did any damage? you bet ya . I am now getting sick of people just tarring every CSM player with the "WAAC" brush, that is one of the major points I am trying to get across, because I know im not yet if I take one Helldrake here apparently Im a WAAC TFG. Our codex Is nowhere as good as other SM codex's yet were are getting the most hate at this current time, to which I say if we didn't have the Helldrake would people complain about CSM? no they wouldn't in fact they would love CSM as they could curb stomp them quite easily, if we didn't have the Helldrake we would just be a 4th ed. to 6th ed. update C+P job, its one unit that stops us from becoming that.

Welcome to the club Daemon players have been putting up with ever since we got our own books more than 5 years ago - we have jackets if it makes you feel any better!


For me, it just seems to be that Marine players, (especially loyalists), tend to have this mindset that their 3+ save should make them damn near impossible to kill.
As in, they can leave a single Tactical squad on a flank and it'll be able to shrug off everything an opponent can throw at it and still easily have half or so of the unit left standing at end of the game.

Sorry but no, 40k just doesn't work that way.

The games were I tend to really take apart marine armies have all been because my opponents have forgotten that marines are generalists by nature and not specialised like most Xenos units tend to be.
For example, a big mistake is marine players thinking they can sit their Tactical squad in cover and win a shooting war with my Tzherald-led Pink Horrors. Um, no you can't because I'm way better at shooting than you! Instead, those marines should be rushing me, popping off a few shots with their pistols and then taking me apart with their better S/T/I and grenades that will negate my cover.

Against a Heldrake, marines have options such as hiding in their transports, using a Skyshield pad for the invuln save, bringing a Libby w/Prescience to make your AA even better & if you happen to roll-up Misfortune then it's even better - re-roll that successful 5++ sucka! Hell, even just spreading out can really mitigate the options for multiple 'Drakes due to their base size...
Yes 3 is hugely obnoxious and is a d-bag move to pull outside of a tournament, but 1 Heldrake alone isn't OP, while a pair of them is annoying, but not insurmountable by any means.

 Stephanius wrote:
The heldrake does not fly alone, it belongs to the CSM army and should be seen in that context.

My feeling after playing quite some games for which I fielded one (1) heldrake, is that the army needs all the extra juice the drake can offer.
The heldrake may be more powerful than other fliers, but a lot of units in the dex are weaker or more expensive than loyalist counterparts.

Example: An Adeptus Sororitas player asked me if I could play without the drake against him. Isolated to the drake and him not having anti-air, that seemed resonable and I followed his request. On the other hand, his 75 or so cans with loads of melters and flamers fried everything else I could bring easily, destroying a Land Raider, Defiler and Vindicator like blow-up replicas and neatly ignored my cover saves.

I'm sure that playing against 2-3 drakes can be annoying, but note that 3 @ 525 pts is the max, compared to 6 croissants for a few points more total.

That said, the question is always what kind of game you are playing. Playing maximum cheese in a friendly game doesn't strike me like a good idea.

And I agree I fought SoB at a tourney once, my opponent had that 5 melta squad that SoB have and proceeded to blow up my Drake (back then in January when I only had one) so even then SoB are stronger than what people think

As I have said before I am a Casual gamer but I use two Helldrakes not because of the power level, but because I like the Idea of having Daemonic Skyrim Dragons breathing fire everywhere but I would never field 3 as I like to use my final slot for other options (such as my Warp Talons for example) plus fielding 3 is part of netlisting, and I am very extremist against Netlists. my Gaming Area currently is also a casual Area, we bring our strongest lists but only with units we want to field not "Shoehorned Units X and Y" that you commonly see in the Army list section in the Forum, and we feel that we have became better generals because of this tbh imo.

Hate the bashing all you want, it's entirely warranted. The thing slaughters everything on the ground, and it slaughters everything in the air with it's vectored strike and other fliers inability to evade it.

That being said, it's a legal option for your army to use, so use it. The nerf bat will come one day, but until then you might as well get your moneys worth out of it.

In the IGs defense, the vendetta was not OP as written in the codex. it was 6th edition that made it OP. I'm sure there will be a point increase whenever they get around to the next IG codex.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 happygolucky wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
I've found that in general, Marine players tend to be really whiney about anything that can outright ignore their armour save...

I am starting to agree with you tbh, im not branding all marine players as "Whiners" but there are a fare share amongst Dakka imo, if Thousand sons were cheaper they bout be branded OP as well I guess..

The fact is as I have mentioned there are multiple ways of taking down the drake, its really is just another flyer, yeah, yeah its has a 5+ Inv, yet 5+ is quite hard to achieve so that really is no excuse, Deathwing do great against them GK paladins do great against them, because they shrug off the Baleflamer, Tau... Well Tau.. MEQ? bring a skyshield landing pad, yup its a 4+ Inv you get and its area is quite large as well just enough to fit majority of troops on it, again no excuse, imho. Does it have AV12 why yes it does but then again that can be penetrated just like any other flyer such as the SR and Vendetta.

Its the fact that whenever someone brings at least one Helldrake they get branded and tarred with a brush as the most WAAC TFG ever to have lived that I commonly see on Dakka, (and our codex could and should be in a better state than it is now imo, we did not receive any new tricks like the two latest armies had (such as Battle Focus and Supporting fire) which changed the playstyle of the armies, ours did not change much, or for the better either), I am a casual gamer, I use warp Talons (*GASP* someone that uses Talons?) and I have played against Gunline Tau with Warp Talons in my army and I won as well, did I use the Helldrakes? Oh yeah sure, did they die before they did any damage? you bet ya . I am now getting sick of people just tarring every CSM player with the "WAAC" brush, that is one of the major points I am trying to get across, because I know im not yet if I take one Helldrake here apparently Im a WAAC TFG. Our codex Is nowhere as good as other SM codex's yet were are getting the most hate at this current time, to which I say if we didn't have the Helldrake would people complain about CSM? no they wouldn't in fact they would love CSM as they could curb stomp them quite easily, if we didn't have the Helldrake we would just be a 4th ed. to 6th ed. update C+P job, its one unit that stops us from becoming that.

Welcome to the club Daemon players have been putting up with ever since we got our own books more than 5 years ago - we have jackets if it makes you feel any better!


For me, it just seems to be that Marine players, (especially loyalists), tend to have this mindset that their 3+ save should make them damn near impossible to kill.
As in, they can leave a single Tactical squad on a flank and it'll be able to shrug off everything an opponent can throw at it and still easily have half or so of the unit left standing at end of the game.

Sorry but no, 40k just doesn't work that way.

The games were I tend to really take apart marine armies have all been because my opponents have forgotten that marines are generalists by nature and not specialised like most Xenos units tend to be.
For example, a big mistake is marine players thinking they can sit their Tactical squad in cover and win a shooting war with my Tzherald-led Pink Horrors. Um, no you can't because I'm way better at shooting than you! Instead, those marines should be rushing me, popping off a few shots with their pistols and then taking me apart with their better S/T/I and grenades that will negate my cover.

Against a Heldrake, marines have options such as hiding in their transports, using a Skyshield pad for the invuln save, bringing a Libby w/Prescience to make your AA even better & if you happen to roll-up Misfortune then it's even better - re-roll that successful 5++ sucka! Hell, even just spreading out can really mitigate the options for multiple 'Drakes due to their base size...
Yes 3 is hugely obnoxious and is a d-bag move to pull outside of a tournament, but 1 Heldrake alone isn't OP, while a pair of them is annoying, but not insurmountable by any means.

Do you have warm frilly cotton wool Jackets? its freezing

And I agree with you there are ways as you have said of taking them down.. any army can take down Helldrakes, but why do after so long (even when the CSM codex is really not up to the standards of the other armies) should CSM receive the most Flakk for one unit... I would guarantee that if Thousand sons were cheaper MEQ would whine about how "OP" they are.. there are worse units (and armies in some cases) out there.

I have to agree with you OP. They really arent that special, I usually take them down with a squad of psycannons in 1 round of shooting.

 djones520 wrote:
Hate the bashing all you want, it's entirely warranted. The thing slaughters everything on the ground, and it slaughters everything in the air with it's vectored strike and other fliers inability to evade it.

That being said, it's a legal option for your army to use, so use it. The nerf bat will come one day, but until then you might as well get your moneys worth out of it.

Oh, I don't get upset with whinging/bashing myself, I just ignore it. The only thing that is relevant is to not kill the fun in a fun game since that defeats the purpose.

Actually, a smart SM player can easily negate the drake with the flamer with a Stormraven. A flamer drake can only vector strike a flier. To do that it must be able to move over you. If you get far enough to it's side or behind the drake, it cannot move over you but you can shoot it all you want.

 happygolucky wrote:

Do you have warm frilly cotton wool Jackets? its freezing

And I agree with you there are ways as you have said of taking them down.. any army can take down Helldrakes, but why do after so long (even when the CSM codex is really not up to the standards of the other armies) should CSM receive the most Flakk for one unit... I would guarantee that if Thousand sons were cheaper MEQ would whine about how "OP" they are.. there are worse units (and armies in some cases) out there.

Meh, we're Chaos, it's always been cool to hate-on Chaos...

Seriously, ever since 3rd edition when I started Chaos have only had 1 really OTT codex. Every other book has been either balanced like the current ones, or else complete trash like the 3rd & 4th ed books.
As a long time Chaos player, (Daemons mostly), I've just gotten used to the attitude that we're not allowed to have nice things like everyone else can.


And yeah, if Thousand Sons were to ever drop to say 20pts/model, the instant nerd rage from all other MEQ players would be wonderous to behold!
Honestly I don't see them as being un-playable right now though... overcosted for sure! But still, a T4/4++ unit with ap3 bolters is pretty decent, they just really need some Divination to make them shine.
Ally them into a Daemon army with 3-4+ rolls on Divination powers and suddenly they're rather silly with easy access to a 3++ and re-roll missed to-hits. Throw a level or two of Biomancy onto the Sorcerer you'll like take as the mandatory HQ plus a cheap unit of Cultists... A pretty solid unit that can aggressively take ground and hold it almost indefinitely!