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Martel732 wrote:
Triple/quadruple stormravens with comms relay will shut them down.

Triple stormravens costs a lot of $$$.

Sad truth is if you are running space marines, helldrakes end you. Termies, centurions... anything else that is armor 2 doesnt help. Anything space marines can make troops get instant killed by drakes (no saves). With T5 bikes... he has to wound on threes but will burn his reroll ability.

Quad gun is useless unless you take centurions with imperial fist tactics. 4 str7, tank hunter shots should be able to intercept one.

But he will still have 2-3 come on and destroy units.

Consider transports for any troops you use, now he has to at least try to destroy these prior to killing troops.

Huh?

I disagree with almost all of this. How does AP2 NOT help against a AP3 weapon? The one and only time my Deathwing army really shines anymore is against Heldrake armies because they can basically run around ignoring them. lol

Quad gun isn't the best choice on it's own, but it is far from useless in a multi-threat environment ...

Transports? If they are L'Raiders then yes. If they are Rhinos you actually make it a little easier for him ...

Martel732 wrote:
So which troops have a 2+ save?

BA can take Sanguinary Guard as troops with Dante.

 c0j1r0 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
So which troops have a 2+ save?

BA can take Sanguinary Guard as troops with Dante.

Last I recalled, weren't SG crazy expensive though?..

I recall a game I played against a friend of mine earlier this year and I threw 4 full squads of Zombie Cultists at him, and we both laughed because his SG died in the first round of combat..

Most problems I have running 2+ anything is the fact that, if the toughness doesn't match the insane armor save, it can have wounds pushed against it and it WILL die..

In several other SM games I've played recently I actually killed Terminators on the charge with Cultists + Autoguns....

2+ saves, sure protect you from the Drakes Bale Flamer, for the most part, but you should expect to at least lose 1 TEQ model per template... Just be on the safe side and don't expect miracles on that part... usually templates will roast an entire squad no matter how far apart you string them...

200 pts for 5 SG. They have decent gear, but that's still 40pts/W. Kinda crazy.

Tycho wrote:
Huh?

I disagree with almost all of this. How does AP2 NOT help against a AP3 weapon?

Because most 2+ save units are expensive and not very good choices to begin with.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Tycho wrote:
Huh?

I disagree with almost all of this. How does AP2 NOT help against a AP3 weapon?

Because most 2+ save units are expensive and not very good choices to begin with.

Pretty much this ^

200 points for 5 SG TEQ models just to try and counter 1 flyer worth 170 points... That's not worth slowing yourself down. Even if you outfit them with a land raider taking up your heavy support, you waste yet another 250 points... What stops me from taking 4 Havocs with Lascannons? (155 Points)

Or a land raider of my own.... Or take Kharn for giggles... lol

This may or may not be relevant, but, when I run drakes, they tend to do well against things like stormtalons and centurions. They tend to go down against infantry units with lots of shots.

While I think the anti-air options in C:SM are useful, I would not discount having large numbers of smaller units on the board. Even with 4 drakes, your opponent will only be able to do so much against 12 smaller squads spaced out at appropriate distances. Your tactics are what stops drakes from being effective more than unit choice.

Take Black Templar allies, hide all your troops in Land Raiders, be immune to Heldrakes.

What about missile launcher? It have skyfire special rule.

Flakk missiles are useless vs helldrakes. But ironically, good against everything else.

How are they useless???

General Hobbs wrote:


How are they useless???

Because it's 1 S7 shot against AV12 with a 5++; do the math.

Beyond that, if your CSM opponent remembers his 'It Will Not Die' rolls, there's a good chance the drakes will be regenerating lost hull points each round. It's more important to hit drakes with a lot of shots instead of one tough shot.

I'd love to see someone run 4 heldrakes againgst my white scars.... I'd table him before they came on.

GoliothOnline wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Tycho wrote:
Huh?

I disagree with almost all of this. How does AP2 NOT help against a AP3 weapon?

Because most 2+ save units are expensive and not very good choices to begin with.

Pretty much this ^

200 points for 5 SG TEQ models just to try and counter 1 flyer worth 170 points... That's not worth slowing yourself down. Even if you outfit them with a land raider taking up your heavy support, you waste yet another 250 points... What stops me from taking 4 Havocs with Lascannons? (155 Points)

Or a land raider of my own.... Or take Kharn for giggles... lol

he is talking about 4 heldrakes. 4 heldrakes is 680 points and requires BL allied shenenigans. 3 troops and 2 HQs, some of them with VotLW.
I would pay 200 points for some 2+ save troops the heldrake cannot touch.

Play the mission, if the mission requires you to score an objective, be sure you have something that will be around on turn 5.

 Exergy wrote:

GoliothOnline wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Tycho wrote:
Huh?

I disagree with almost all of this. How does AP2 NOT help against a AP3 weapon?

Because most 2+ save units are expensive and not very good choices to begin with.

Pretty much this ^

200 points for 5 SG TEQ models just to try and counter 1 flyer worth 170 points... That's not worth slowing yourself down. Even if you outfit them with a land raider taking up your heavy support, you waste yet another 250 points... What stops me from taking 4 Havocs with Lascannons? (155 Points)

Or a land raider of my own.... Or take Kharn for giggles... lol

he is talking about 4 heldrakes. 4 heldrakes is 680 points and requires BL allied shenenigans. 3 troops and 2 HQs, some of them with VotLW.
I would pay 200 points for some 2+ save troops the heldrake cannot touch.

Play the mission, if the mission requires you to score an objective, be sure you have something that will be around on turn 5.

Im well aware of that...

If what was stated earlier in the threat was running solely SG at 200 points / 5 models and you wanted to take a bare minimum amount of troops to be effective, you would need 4 troop choices... so lets say you want to be able to "Ignore" the threat of those masterful AP3 Baleflamers and took 4 troop choices of SG at 200 points a units... Congradulations, you just blew 800 points on 4 troop choices that can now be killed by massed fire from cultists... Not including upgrades, not including HQs, nor transports... 800 points in anything TEQ is a lot of generally, wasted points... For a Chaos player, I myself would generally laugh at that kind of notion brought to a table, as something "Competitive"... What will you do with them? Foot slog 36" towards me?

v_v" 680 points + a Jugger Lord (170) add in 3 squads of 30 cultists and you're only looking at an 1180 point cost... excluding the cost of whatever HQ choice and troop choice you would want from The Black Legion Suppliment... easily doable in a 1500 point game...

I only play CSM and Daemons but that many Drakes annoys me, so here are my ideas.

If he runs Spawn, no biggie, they have no saves except cover saves. Volumes of bolter fire can take them out, or assault cannons are good. Sternguard or Legion of the Damned in a drop pod? That would be good to drop right next to that unit.

As for the Drakes, Aegis Line will help IF you man the Icarus with a BS5 or higher Terminator dude. Allied Tau Broadsides with the Interceptor upgrade would be really good, they wrecked my Heldrake very nicely this past weekend (those bastards!).

Stormravens are super expensive but do get some nice AA shots with the multi-meltas and S8 missiles. I always have a hard time with them, even with Vector Striking. I don't think they could take you down in one round like that. But that Hunter tank sounds really neat, if that has those missiles which keep coming back every turn.

Also don't discount Flakk Missile Devastators on a Skyshield Pad. Just spread them out.

And take transports for your regular Marines. Heldrakes can do much of anything to the guys inside unless they're really lucky with Vector Striking. Skillful positioning of models can severely limit the Vector hits too, as the Drakes will have to cross your model and land at least 1" away from your models. That's screwed me over a few times.

So perhaps a list like this:

cheapo Terminator dude on Aegis gun (maybe Librarian?)
w Flakk Devs

3 Tac squads in Rhinos or Razorbacks? whatever you like

pod with Legion of the Damned for anti-Lord/Spawn (so Spawn don't get cover right? and they can be assaulted and have 3++ invuls!)

Hunter tank (whichever gets the follow-me missiles)

Centurions w lascannons

Allied Slaanesh Daemon Prince with Lash, no wait, nevermind

GoliothOnline wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

GoliothOnline wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Tycho wrote:
Huh?

I disagree with almost all of this. How does AP2 NOT help against a AP3 weapon?

Because most 2+ save units are expensive and not very good choices to begin with.

Pretty much this ^

200 points for 5 SG TEQ models just to try and counter 1 flyer worth 170 points... That's not worth slowing yourself down. Even if you outfit them with a land raider taking up your heavy support, you waste yet another 250 points... What stops me from taking 4 Havocs with Lascannons? (155 Points)

Or a land raider of my own.... Or take Kharn for giggles... lol

he is talking about 4 heldrakes. 4 heldrakes is 680 points and requires BL allied shenenigans. 3 troops and 2 HQs, some of them with VotLW.
I would pay 200 points for some 2+ save troops the heldrake cannot touch.

Play the mission, if the mission requires you to score an objective, be sure you have something that will be around on turn 5.

Im well aware of that...

If what was stated earlier in the threat was running solely SG at 200 points / 5 models and you wanted to take a bare minimum amount of troops to be effective, you would need 4 troop choices... so lets say you want to be able to "Ignore" the threat of those masterful AP3 Baleflamers and took 4 troop choices of SG at 200 points a units... Congradulations, you just blew 800 points on 4 troop choices that can now be killed by massed fire from cultists... Not including upgrades, not including HQs, nor transports... 800 points in anything TEQ is a lot of generally, wasted points... For a Chaos player, I myself would generally laugh at that kind of notion brought to a table, as something "Competitive"... What will you do with them? Foot slog 36" towards me?

v_v" 680 points + a Jugger Lord (170) add in 3 squads of 30 cultists and you're only looking at an 1180 point cost... excluding the cost of whatever HQ choice and troop choice you would want from The Black Legion Suppliment... easily doable in a 1500 point game...

Did I say 800 points? I said 200 points. Having some teq around would be nice. They can easily stay out of cultist range, as for 1180 points they could only get 3 units of 25 cultists with pistols. Stay on the board and score late. If the cultists get too close charge them, they arent fearless. The jugger lord is, but he can only be in one place at a time. Sang guard are fast.

Also 3 squads of 25 cultists + jugger lord and whatever else you are taking for 320 points that includes an HQ is incapable of taking down a land raider. It is likely to get shot up on first and second turn.

If you wanted autoguns on your cultists, to give them some range, you will end up with less and far less after turn 1-2 shooting.


As for your laughing, go ahead. the cultists have to move up to use their 12" range str3 guns. The jugger lord has to move up to get into combat. 320 points - another HQ isnt going to do much damage to vehicles or 2+ saves at range, so one can just hunker down and wait.

Ally in IG with a Master of the Fleet, watch your opponent's heldrakes stagger onto the board piecemeal.

For missile launcher you will have more hit than normal heavy weapon, BS5 are better than BS1.

Thank to signum from sergeant, use his signum to hunt down heldrake with 4 missile launcher. This will give you much more chance to force heldrake to jink and use snap shot from heldrake, if lucky, stunned. So heldrake will force get out of battle zone. If game ending with heldrake outside of battle zone then it count as destroy.

All you do is scare them hell out of your missile launcher, simple.

 Lord Krungharr wrote:
Stormravens are super expensive but do get some nice AA shots with the multi-meltas and S8 missiles. I always have a hard time with them, even with Vector Striking. I don't think they could take you down in one round like that. But that Hunter tank sounds really neat, if that has those missiles which keep coming back every turn.

When I was playing my Nurgle CSM army, I had a hard time with stormravens. I would just ignore them and focus on his troops, and I could usually kill/severely weaken 4-5 squads before he could kill my 2 drakes. At most I only ever played against one stormraven. Logically 2 stormravens should have similar effects vs 4 drakes.

This is because the drakes don't have the tools to hurt storm ravens -- vector strikes won't do it. And storm ravens have the tools to kill helldrakes. A TL MM is just nasty to AV12. STR 8 missiles can do nasty damage. A TL AC in the rear arc is not good. They have the tools to kill helldrakes dead.

If my opponents were smart, they would stay in rhinos/storm ravens. Not bastions (as you can flame all the models inside). If your hiding inside a rhino, it takes 2 drakes vector striking to crack the rhino open. Keep the rhinos near your side of the board, so your opponent cannot vector strike then flame. Make him have to vector strike on his flight off the board to get at your guys.

Your opponent may have some long range havocs. Those need to be priority for your forces starting on the ground. You do NOT want to have his autocannon havocs cracking your rhinos before the helldrakes are delt with. Something as simple as a TFC can do the job here, or your own long range shooting in rhinos.
Consider an ADL to hide your rhinos behind. I know, ADLs are not good in all comers lists, as they are near useless vs TauDar. However, when you know your playing a CSM player, your giving an extra 50% to the durability of your rhinos. An ADL unlocks Comm-relay.

If your opponent is bringing 4 helldrakes, and 2 HQs, hes probably not going to have that many points invested in troops. If your lucky, he will bring 3 squads of cultists and call it a day. If that's the case, focus on them with your thunderfires after his long range threats are delt with, and your stormravens after his helldrakes are either delt with or off the board. 10 cultists is easy to kill with TFCs or hurricane bolters. Once you remove his troops, hes playing for a tie in 5/6 of the book missions. All you have to do is keep one troop in each stormraven until the end of the game (in case 1 gets blown out of the sky) and your good to go.

Go second if possible! You don't want to fly onto the board before his drakes. You want to have nice shots lined up on them.

If your going BA, make sure you have the FNP priests near your squads. That will keep 1/3 of your marines alive after a helldrake flame. If your going C:SM look at either iron hands or ultramarines. Ultramarines' devastator doctrine lets their devs reroll shots vs flyers -- meaning your hitting 30% of the time. That's a nice unexpected punch.

Solidcrash wrote:
For missile launcher you will have more hit than normal heavy weapon, BS5 are better than BS1.

Thank to signum from sergeant, use his signum to hunt down heldrake with 4 missile launcher. This will give you much more chance to force heldrake to jink and use snap shot from heldrake, if lucky, stunned. So heldrake will force get out of battle zone. If game ending with heldrake outside of battle zone then it count as destroy.

All you do is scare them hell out of your missile launcher, simple.

with a 5++ I have never seen a heldrake ever attempt to "jink"

I also dont think str7 scares av12 with IWND and the 5++ very much.

Lascannons might be BS1, but they have a much higher chance to one shot it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Lord Krungharr wrote:
Stormravens are super expensive but do get some nice AA shots with the multi-meltas and S8 missiles. I always have a hard time with them, even with Vector Striking. I don't think they could take you down in one round like that. But that Hunter tank sounds really neat, if that has those missiles which keep coming back every turn.

When I was playing my Nurgle CSM army, I had a hard time with stormravens. I would just ignore them and focus on his troops, and I could usually kill/severely weaken 4-5 squads before he could kill my 2 drakes. At most I only ever played against one stormraven. Logically 2 stormravens should have similar effects vs 4 drakes.

This is because the drakes don't have the tools to hurt storm ravens -- vector strikes won't do it. And storm ravens have the tools to kill helldrakes. A TL MM is just nasty to AV12. STR 8 missiles can do nasty damage. A TL AC in the rear arc is not good. They have the tools to kill helldrakes dead.

If my opponents were smart, they would stay in rhinos/storm ravens. Not bastions (as you can flame all the models inside). If your hiding inside a rhino, it takes 2 drakes vector striking to crack the rhino open. Keep the rhinos near your side of the board, so your opponent cannot vector strike then flame. Make him have to vector strike on his flight off the board to get at your guys.

Your opponent may have some long range havocs. Those need to be priority for your forces starting on the ground. You do NOT want to have his autocannon havocs cracking your rhinos before the helldrakes are delt with. Something as simple as a TFC can do the job here, or your own long range shooting in rhinos.
Consider an ADL to hide your rhinos behind. I know, ADLs are not good in all comers lists, as they are near useless vs TauDar. However, when you know your playing a CSM player, your giving an extra 50% to the durability of your rhinos. An ADL unlocks Comm-relay.

If your opponent is bringing 4 helldrakes, and 2 HQs, hes probably not going to have that many points invested in troops. If your lucky, he will bring 3 squads of cultists and call it a day. If that's the case, focus on them with your thunderfires after his long range threats are delt with, and your stormravens after his helldrakes are either delt with or off the board. 10 cultists is easy to kill with TFCs or hurricane bolters. Once you remove his troops, hes playing for a tie in 5/6 of the book missions. All you have to do is keep one troop in each stormraven until the end of the game (in case 1 gets blown out of the sky) and your good to go.

Go second if possible! You don't want to fly onto the board before his drakes. You want to have nice shots lined up on them.

If your going BA, make sure you have the FNP priests near your squads. That will keep 1/3 of your marines alive after a helldrake flame. If your going C:SM look at either iron hands or ultramarines. Ultramarines' devastator doctrine lets their devs reroll shots vs flyers -- meaning your hitting 30% of the time. That's a nice unexpected punch.

I would add that if you do have troops that are going to be starting on the board, look for ruins with multiple levels near table edges. They can only flame one level at a time and vector striking them will take the drake off the board.

That's an excellent point. Also, by RAW, the drake can't flame the third level of a ruin, right?

I would say as much 2+ as you can, and bring 2 Ravens (Las/Ass + MM).
since a Drake will never choose to VS a Raven if it means miss a chance to bake some Tac Marines/other squishy 3+ Sv unit, you will find your Raven can generally pick them apart.

If you go Las/Ass + MM + 2 Stormstrikes at a Drake in one turn, it should die. you have 2 Ravens, so you kill two drakes.

The next trun, one raven kills the other Drake (assuming none got intercepted) while the other Raven goes to work killing infantry. Hurricane sponsons go will with Assault Cannons at simply erasing troops, despite people saying don't take them ever (I think theyre great XD)

2 Ravens will kill 3 drakes over 2 turns. If you bring 2 Talons to the mix as well, you have air dominance in one turn of shooting, but you are talking about 700 points there

Yeah my bad, point calc was off 3 squads of 30 cultists, plus the other stuff would be 1240. I put the sigil on the Jugger Lord along with the Axe of Blind Fury + MoK.

GoliothOnline wrote:


Yeah my bad, point calc was off 3 squads of 30 cultists, plus the other stuff would be 1240. I put the sigil on the Jugger Lord along with the Axe of Blind Fury + MoK.

yeah, it happens to all of us, just pointing it out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 IHateNids wrote:
I would say as much 2+ as you can, and bring 2 Ravens (Las/Ass + MM).
since a Drake will never choose to VS a Raven if it means miss a chance to bake some Tac Marines/other squishy 3+ Sv unit, you will find your Raven can generally pick them apart.

If you go Las/Ass + MM + 2 Stormstrikes at a Drake in one turn, it should die. you have 2 Ravens, so you kill two drakes.

The next trun, one raven kills the other Drake (assuming none got intercepted) while the other Raven goes to work killing infantry. Hurricane sponsons go will with Assault Cannons at simply erasing troops, despite people saying don't take them ever (I think theyre great XD)

2 Ravens will kill 3 drakes over 2 turns. If you bring 2 Talons to the mix as well, you have air dominance in one turn of shooting, but you are talking about 700 points there

a raven in melta range firing AC/LC + MM + 2 SSmissiles is going to average 1.5 hulpoints down and ~40-70% chance of explodes which is pretty good. But it is boom or bust, obviously there are a lot of situations that will result in 0 hull points lost and some situations where it loses 6 hullpoints and explodes 3 times. I wouldnt count on each raven killing one drake, 3 ravens might kill 2, but you would need 4 to nearly guarantee 2.

On the other hand, if only facing 1-2 storm ravens, drakes vector strike can be very effective. Each will average 1 hull point, so three drakes could kill a raven in a turn if the raven comes in first.

Even if you do kill all 4 drakes in 2-3 turns and the drakes aren't going after the ravens, the drakes are going to get 6 good flame+VS passes which will devastate your unprepared infantry. I think the key is to have some 2+ saves, something in a landraider, and some of your troops in reserve trying not to come in.

Oh definitely. have to be able to survive first, I always think. Take the hit,m then hit back x2 S

But with 3 Drakes, you can pretty easily (55% is mid of your range) kill one with a Raven, leaving the other to be killed by Interceotor/Talons/Snapshot Lascannons from the floor (Cents probs)

More than possible, but it is a very do or die manauver