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Early in 6th ed, there was a guy who had 6 drakes. A story here on dakka dakka about another fellow who fought this powergamer and did not know how to beat him and his 6 drakes or tell him its no fun. I just want to know if you thought this guy was crazy or was his army scary.

From what i remembered
Cad1
Sorc-60
2X10 cultist-100

3x Baledrakes-510

Bastion+com relay-95

Cad 2

Sorc-60

2x10 cultist-100

3x baledrakes-510

Total 1435. I dont remember the remaining 65 pts. More cultists?

Is this list just a joke now compared to 7th ed tourney lists and IA13 options? At the begining of 6thed, shooting down flyers was hard. Is this still something to fear?

This list was like a mockery of wh40k. It has distorted my views on list building so bad that i had believed that the only competitive list were those that spammed the most overpowered or unbalanced or undercosted units to win. Since then i have been trying to imitate the spam .

I dunno. It can kill infantry and light tanks sure. But can do little to heavy tanks and walkers or the super MCs we see these days. It also struggles to score.. (but might be OK in maelstrom)

The loss of 360 vision hurts the helldrake. The ability to flame open topped passengers is a boon.

Id say its a pain in the butt to play against but wouldn't win all that much.

This is unfortunately not a strong list. Spamming just 1 unit even a very strong one (which the Helldrake no longer is with 360° LoS) is generally not a great idea. It makes your list very rock/paper/scissors. The Helldrake is no longer a super powered unit, more mechanisation has also hurt it. Whilst the more objective focused play of Maelstrom means starting so much of your army off the board until turn 2 will mean you'll lose any game where you don't table your opponent. I can't see this tabling anyone except footslogging marines and I never see anyone field that.

if youre gonna have 6 heldrakes, take 1 hades autocannon in each CAD. Its better against flyers and vehicles in general.

Also I dissagree that you would have trouble scoring as captyn_bob said. In the last turn of the game you can just park the drakes next to uncontested objectives and hover them.

However I think any list that spams a single powerful unit is never fun and a list that has multiple different units that are all ballanced to be good at certain things are more fun, more strategic to play and can achieve just the same results.

If you have started to believe that any list building should consist of spamming the best units, try to play a few friendly games using the worst units of the codex and seeing how well you can do. After that take some out and replace them with better (not the best) units and work your way up from there. I am sure you will be able to win games before you reach the point of having to only use the best units from the codex. And you might find that you really like using certain units that people lable as bad.

Also I dissagree that you would have trouble scoring as captyn_bob said. In the last turn of the game you can just park the drakes next to uncontested objectives and hover them. 

What about all the other turns? Remember in 7th you grab objectives through the game. Also with random game length Hovering turn 5 puts you in danger if you don't go 2nd and if there's a turn 6 or potentially even a turn 7 with your opponent suddenly given potentially 3 turns to kill your hovering Drakes.

Theres a couple things that make this list not nearly as scary as beginning 6th. Helldrakes go a number of nerfs, no 360 sight, worse vector striking, ect.

Compounding this problem the meta has largely changed in maelstrom to more mech based lists that can easily score multiple objectives. This really hurts drakes because their strong suit is killing the odd devestator squad sitting in the back field or clearing gunlines. These lists aren't the tournament winners of today so helldrakes are becoming more of a 1-2 so you can cover you aa, not something you see taken en mass. Be'lakor has also hurt the dragons because he does their job of aa but also gets you access to invisibility and pysker powers in general. Someone spamming wave serpants is still much scarier and annoying to deal with.

Do people still run 3-4 drakes?

Epartalis wrote:
Theres a couple things that make this list not nearly as scary as beginning 6th. Helldrakes go a number of nerfs, no 360 sight, worse vector striking, ect.

Compounding this problem the meta has largely changed in maelstrom to more mech based lists that can easily score multiple objectives. This really hurts drakes because their strong suit is killing the odd devestator squad sitting in the back field or clearing gunlines. These lists aren't the tournament winners of today so helldrakes are becoming more of a 1-2 so you can cover you aa, not something you see taken en mass. Be'lakor has also hurt the dragons because he does their job of aa but also gets you access to invisibility and pysker powers in general. Someone spamming wave serpants is still much scarier and annoying to deal with.

How on earth is Be'lakor AA?

Ha I thought the same thing, he can S 6 vector strike but thats not much use. If only he could use his sword.
He can shriek FMCs I guess.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Ha I thought the same thing, he can S 6 vector strike but thats not much use. If only he could use his sword.
He can shriek FMCs I guess.

Yeah, I can maybe see him as anti FMC... but definitely not AA. He is an amazing unit, but does nothing for a list there.

As for the hell turkeys... They're still a very good unit. They're much more balanced now. As for your list idea? I can't see it being at all competitive. There's plenty that will either deal with them, or just ignore them. And if you come up against AV14, you're pretty screwed.

It aint my list but thanks for the reassurance that I will never have to see this list pop up anytime soon.

I posted this list because Captyn_Bob asked me, "I think 3 is enough for any army.. why are you so set on spamming? its bad listbuidling."

It might work. However, you'll have huge chances on loosing via points. You basically have no board presence for the first turn. Turn 2 you can't go hover to score points either. Means the opponent will have the first 2 turns to maneuvre around and probably take 4 out of 6 points. Or even more as 2 barebones sorcs and 40 cultists won't do much vs the whole opponent's army.

Baledrakes work fine in combination with rhino marines. But you don't spam drakes. 1 is good. 2 are good in larger pt games. But the more you go, the fewer things you have to controle the board.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Ha I thought the same thing, he can S 6 vector strike but thats not much use. If only he could use his sword.
He can shriek FMCs I guess.

Anyone can shriek FMCs, heck Ahriman is vastly better at it as he can shriek them 3 times if he needs to.

He still needs to hit.

Why? What about Psychic Shriek is dependant on hits? Remembering the 3d6-ld wounds has literally nothing to do with hits (or to wound rolls). Also how many dice do you roll to hit for PS and where is this information found?

 FlingitNow wrote:
Why? What about Psychic Shriek is dependant on hits? Remembering the 3d6-ld wounds has literally nothing to do with hits (or to wound rolls). Also how many dice do you roll to hit for PS and where is this information found?

Witchfire specify that they have to roll to hit (this is another rules issue with no clear answer)

Cool PS has to roll to hit. What makes the 3d6-ld wounds effect dependent in anyway on that to hit roll? Also how many dice do you roll to hit for PS and where is this information found?

This is actually a pretty clear situation. Just as clear as casting say Enfeeble on a vehicle. Just people don't want it to be.

Nooo not rules debate aiiiiii.

Its not at all clear cut, as the many many debates on YMDC will show. Given that the wording has not changed a thing between editions, and that it is a witchfire, I play as rolling to hit. I wish i didn't tho.

How many dice do you roll to hit? Why are you nit resolving the 3d6-ld wounds effect that the rules require you to resolve on the target unit regardless of hitting or missing?

There is no profile telling us how many dice to roll. So I'm guessing you're setting this to 1. Do you do the same in other similar situations. Say you cast Enfeeble on a vehicle do you set the vehicle to T1 to apply the -1T modifier that the rules require you to apply. Or do you ignore the -1T effect as it is unresolvable?

I would love to roll to hit on PS as it makes it super powered and the best AT in the game. Lets go through the process:

Roll to hit no profile telling us how many dice so set the profile to 1. Roll 1 dice to hit.

Roll 3d6-ld no profile telling us Ld so set the profile to 1. So 3d6-1 wounds.

Apply wounds no profile telling us how many wounds the Imperial Knight has so set the profile to 1. Knight dies.

You really play that way? Or do you say that the -1T from Enfeeble does nothing to vehicles. That the 3d6-ld does nothing to anything without an Ld profile and that wounds do nothing to anything without a wounds profile?

Fling this is someone's armylist thread, lets not highjack it for another rules debate on psychic shriek

Fair enough. But lets not pretend the rules are unclear.

Thank you everyone for sharing your opinion and insight. I think the days of dragons are long past. The most we will see is 3 or 4 drakes if it ever makes it to a competitive setting.

I think fling it now is right about ld effects dont affect vehicle . But i think ps can hurt flyrants, and flying dp because they have ld.

Lets bury these old bones. Maybe the new dex will turn the drake into a fossil.