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If you want to use your Daemon Prince, ally with daemons. Their version is quite potent.

With regards to the Heldrake, in and of itself, it does deserve the hate it gets when used with the baleflamer. The autocannon configuration not as much, but the 360* torrent flamer is really really good. Now, that said, there is an element of truth to the earlier proposition that it's MEQ armies whining about something ignoring their armor save that defines so much of the mindset about them (and keep in mind, I play such an army too), and yet such armies now are paying less than ever before (especially next to 4+ armor save units where practically any non-small arms weapon ignores their save and typically don't cost much or any less than the MEQ's do) for that save. That said, the Heldrake in general can just do too much with lots of that AP3 that everyone drools over, able to engage anything that isn't a Land Raider or Leman Russ tank with its flyover attacks against side armor, and put serious hurt on any non-2+sv infantry unit immediately after, with the armor of a medium tank and a 5+ invul save and very little way to get a shaken/stunned result to stick. It can engage too wide a range of targets with too high a success rate (especially as it doesn't have to worry about scatter like say, a Leman Russ tank does for its big AP3 cannon) and is too resistant to retaliation to really be balanced.

However, taken within the greater context of the CSM book, largely what this equates to is a gigantic crutch for the CSM army, without which we'd likely not see them appearing in winners circles at competitive events particularly often. That book was a rather large heap of disappointment and phoning in, and while very powerful with the Heldrake, is unreasonably reliant on it in many respects.

The problem I have with the Heldrake is the same one I have with Wave Serpents. If they happen to be a strong counter to a part of my list, I have to devote way too much firepower to dealing with them. You can, at least, hit serpents on rear armor, while heldrakes remain incredibly hard to destroy without specialized equipment.

As a GK player, I'm paying at least 20 points for that strike marine that just got flamed. That means the Heldrake can easily more than make up its cost in a single round of shooting.

That's the real problem here. It is too easy for the Heldrake to make its points back. It's hard to kill and easily kills some of the most expensive scoring units in the game.

I don't intend to whine about it, it's not impossible to deal with, but it forces me to play very differently than I might if it didn't exist, or if it could be killed more easily.

Skill / strategy is involved when you have a unit that has to be used in a very precise fashion to make up its cost, or at least contribute meaningfully. The Heldrake is a unit that does not require any thought to use effectively, and only a little bit of thought to use most effectively.

I hate people defending "OP units" by naming 2 or 3 counters to them.. That not every army has acces to and people would only take if they knew they were facing that unit.. Most TAC lists will not include stuff like skyshield landing pads for example (at least in my meta).. Yeah there is a counter to everything but the counter shouldn't be so specific

 Vaktathi wrote:
With regards to the Heldrake, in and of itself, it does deserve the hate it gets when used with the baleflamer. The autocannon configuration not as much, but the 360* torrent flamer is really really good. Now, that said, there is an element of truth to the earlier proposition that it's MEQ armies whining about something ignoring their armor save that defines so much of the mindset about them (and keep in mind, I play such an army too), and yet such armies now are paying less than ever before (especially next to 4+ armor save units where practically any non-small arms weapon ignores their save and typically don't cost much or any less than the MEQ's do) for that save. That said, the Heldrake in general can just do too much with lots of that AP3 that everyone drools over, able to engage anything that isn't a Land Raider or Leman Russ tank with its flyover attacks against side armor, and put serious hurt on any non-2+sv infantry unit immediately after, with the armor of a medium tank and a 5+ invul save and very little way to get a shaken/stunned result to stick. It can engage too wide a range of targets with too high a success rate (especially as it doesn't have to worry about scatter like say, a Leman Russ tank does for its big AP3 cannon) and is too resistant to retaliation to really be balanced.

However, taken within the greater context of the CSM book, largely what this equates to is a gigantic crutch for the CSM army, without which we'd likely not see them appearing in winners circles at competitive events particularly often. That book was a rather large heap of disappointment and phoning in, and while very powerful with the Heldrake, is unreasonably reliant on it in many respects.

which is a huge problem. i want power armour to be good. it should be good, not worthless.

i also dont like cheap marines. marines should be a small elite army.

Power armor isn't worthless, and personally I'm fine with some weapons like the baleflamer existing because power armor shouldn't mean that there's nothing out there that can't be powerful enough to destroy it with ease (as we've gone through several editions where it might as well have been 2+/3+/-), but rather the issue with the Heldrake is that it's so effective in that role on top of having its Vector Strike that's capable against both vehicles and Power Armor troops, and is just so damn resilient and difficult to shut down on top of being fast and maneuverable.

If the baleflamer were a 45* forward arc and it were AV11, or if it weren't a Torrent weapon and didn't have the 5+ invul or whatnot, then it wouldn't be such an issue, the S6 AP3 in and of itself as a threat to power armored troops isn't so huge, it's that the damn thing can do damn near *everything*.

 Gunzhard wrote:

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.

I think your assumption is a little off. As a CSM player, the only reason I started fielding multiple Heldrakes is because my lone drake crumpled rather quickly to AA fire. Taking multiple drakes forces the opponent to divide his AA amongst several targets, and if he should happen to take one of them down, then you've still got 2 others to shove down his throat.

Unit redundancy is what wins games in 40k. As AA becomes more prevalent and effective, expect players to bring more Heldrakes, not less.

My only sadness is that you can only take the baleflamer on a heldrake. I would love to prime that on my predators or land raiders.