Gettin real sick of hell drakes and flyer nonsense

Hell drakes are the bane of my life. I hate taking flyers as a counter since ours aren't great. It's always fun having that strength 6 flame just crisp my poor warriors.
So fire storm redoubt a possible answer to fliers and their shenanigans? It's 200 points so I realllllly don't wana be wasting it if it's not going to truly put the bastards (or any other flyers for that matter) out of the sky. Thoughts?

I tend to ignore themm, with our mobilty you can move in a way it won't be able to do much it beign very limited as a flyer even with torrent.

kind of impossible when 2 hell drakes are on the board

I thoroughly recommend the Firestorm Redoubt, especially if you man it with Lance-totting Trueborn. Recommended.

It sounds nice it's too bad they can only have 2 lances, 4? I'd be all over it

Problem with the Firestorm is that, due to the Fully Automated rule, the Icarus Lascannons will probably manage less than 1HP on a Helldrake and then the Helldrake puts its lovely Baleflamer template over the building and pretty much anything on the battlements and/or inside the building, dies automatically with no saves (automatic hits, wounding on rerollable 2+, AP3, Ignores Cover and S6 to negate FNP on most our models).

I bleedin' hate Helldrakes!!

Given how limited the hell drakes shooting arc is - I always find them easy to get around and out of arc

Playing itc? It has 180 degree arcs

Xm0shcryptX wrote:

Playing itc? It has 180 degree arcs

Nope, it's a hull-mounted weapon - giving it just a 45 degree arc.

From the CSM FAQ:
Q:How do I determine the Arc of Sight for a Helldrake's ranged weapon? (p52)
A: Treat the Helldrake's ranged weapon as a hull-mounted weapon, measuring all ranges and line of sight from the barrel of the gun.

From the rulebook:
"assume all hull-mounted weapons can swivel horizontally up to 45º."

Only 45? Nice to know.

If you run in to a lot of flyers and are willing to take corsair allies, the fire storm (fast skimmer tank, not redoubt) is pretty nasty anti air with interceptor and a 60" range for less than a hell drake.  It's pretty easy to convert one too - I just made a new turret for a magnetized falcon and attached some elongated scatter lasers to it.

You'd think it'd struggle against av 12 but you're going to average around 1 pen with those 6 twin linked, rending, ignore cover shots.  I've had really good luck with mine, including knocking a storm raven out of the sky before it got to do anything.  I've only played 2 games with corsairs though so it's not a fair sampling.

The problem with hell drakes is that they are more resilient than any other av12 flyer, having a 5++, IWND, and a very good chance of ignoring shaken/stunned (and therefore immobilized).  It's only real weakness is it's rear armor, which is not something you're likely to exploit with a static gun.

Oh, one other thing - make sure he's following the rules for flamers correctly. You have to put as much of the template as possible on the target unit (or cover as much of a target vehicle's hull as possible). So, you can't just clip your target in order to get the flamer over another one or two units as well.

I've found my Razorwing to be extremely effective against the helldrakes that I encounter on a regular basis.
So much so, that I can't make a list without the Razorwing if I am playing a CSM player, cuz you know it's coming.

That and, as a DE only army (haven't branched into Allies yet), its one of the only things we have to take on flyers.

Could you elaborate on that?

I mean, the odds of you penetrating it are less than 1/3 (assuming it doesn't jink). Even glancing it, you're at less than 50%. With 3 HPs and IWND it seems like you could easily shoot it for 6 turns and still not kill it.

Most of the time, the Heldrake isn't going to jink, because he wouldn't be able to fire his template weapon on the next round. Heldrakes are there to lay the beat down before getting gunned down, so he'll probably not jink in the hopes of flaming another unit to a crisp.

It only takes 1 penetrating (with luck) and IWND is not reliable (as my CSM opponent sees frequently).

Maybe I've just been lucky, but with the two Dark Lances, I've managed to at least give them a run for their money in most games.

Wulfvin wrote:

Most of the time, the Heldrake isn't going to jink, because he wouldn't be able to fire his template weapon on the next round. Heldrakes are there to lay the beat down before getting gunned down, so he'll probably not jink in the hopes of flaming another unit to a crisp.

Yeah, but they still have a 5++.

Wulfvin wrote:

It only takes 1 penetrating (with luck) and IWND is not reliable (as my CSM opponent sees frequently).

But that's the thing - you're only averaging 1 penetrating hit every 3 turns.

Also, it will usually take *at least* two penetrating hits with a dark lance to inflict significant damage. And one of those, Immobilised, can easily leave the thing still flying around - so it's closer to 3 penetrating hits to permanently kill/disable it.

What would you suggest then Shredder?
I understand that the math isn't necessarily in your favor, but we have limited options within our Codex to deal with Flyers, and I try not to play mathhammer, I try to play games for fun and if a tactic works it works.

If you manage to get around to it's rear armor, you'll also be alot more effective.

Wulfvin wrote:

What would you suggest then Shredder?

Personally, I'd just try to get out of its limited arc.

Wulfvin wrote:

If you manage to get around to it's rear armor, you'll also be alot more effective.

True.

The Shredder wrote:

Personally, I'd just try to get out of its limited arc.

That may not always be a possibility. How do you eliminate the target in a DE list?
Hope for some luck with DL Ravagers or HW Scourges?
Take fortifications?
Supplement with Allies? (I hate that we NEED to supplment with Allies to have a competitive list)

Wulfvin wrote:

That may not always be a possibility. How do you eliminate the target in a DE list?

There is no reliable way. If you have a Razorwing and there are no better targets, by all means shoot it. But I don't see the point of including a "counter" unit when the counter unit sucks at its job anyway.

Wulfvin wrote:

Hope for some luck with DL Ravagers or HW Scourges?

I'd probably go after his other vehicles first, then start shooting the helldrake with those and hope to get lucky.

Wulfvin wrote:

Take fortifications?
Supplement with Allies? (I hate that we NEED to supplment with Allies to have a competitive list)

Probably our best answer, depressingly.

It's not just hell drakes that cause problems, the necron flyers dropping people up close and I can't do squat, or storm talons/Ravens? Whatever the space marine flyers are. They all just appear too frequently and I can't stop it and trying to avoid and survive usually puts me in a bad spot or I can't shoot because of needing to turbo boost. I just want to have reliable defense that can actually bring down fliers

I have two 40k atm... Csm and dark eldar and I hard time with both armies dealing with flyers. Even when I have flyers on the table my self. Dark eldar flyers die if you look at them wrong and csm heldrake have one gun! When I play against sm they flyers have tons of special rules and more weapons that they can fire... But I think every army in the game struggle with flyers. Okay okay that is a lie tau doesn't, but there is not much tau struggle with.

Think you best strategy is to get the flyers to jink or ally in 3 missile broadside with skyfire...

You've mentioned the Firestorm Redoubt, what about the Imperial Bunker? That can take a void shield, which can give at least some protection from flaming, plus a quad-gun, plus an ammo cache to let the guys inside reroll 1s to hit. It's not all that expensive, either.

It's really unfluffy, but at this point...

Might as well ally Crimson hunters at this point, de just aren't meant to be anti flyer, gmc, low, etc lol

.I agree with Shredder, just avoid theme. An MSU style army works better in this scenario.

And remember: more flyers on the sky, less guys on the gorund. Focus on the ground!