Gettin real sick of hell drakes and flyer nonsense

Helldrakes are certainly less devastating with the change to their fire arc from that mythical beast, a GW FAQ. My problem is that there is literally nothing that 99% of our units can do if they are targeted. It's as close to an automatic death as exists in this game. Hits automatically, wounds on a 2+ (re-rollable with hellforge) and almost nothing in our codex can make any sort of save (Drazhar and anything with an invulnerable - which we barely have). We're not even safe in our vehicles or in buildings these days. It's just really not fun to play against and our local CSM player now has 4 of the bloody things!!

Count Adhemar wrote:

Helldrakes are certainly less devastating with the change to their fire arc from that mythical beast, a GW FAQ. My problem is that there is literally nothing that 99% of our units can do if they are targeted. It's as close to an automatic death as exists in this game. Hits automatically, wounds on a 2+ (re-rollable with hellforge) and almost nothing in our codex can make any sort of save (Drazhar and anything with an invulnerable - which we barely have). We're not even safe in our vehicles or in buildings these days. It's just really not fun to play against and our local CSM player now has 4 of the bloody things!!

Oh, I quite agree. It's the same reason I despise Dreadknights - with their S6 AP4 torrent flamers and 30" teleport.

As you say, we've basically got no defence against them. S6 means it wounds us on 2s (even our bikes), as well as removing FNP and IDing any unlucky character and AP3 (or even 4) is enough to remove virtually all our saves.

I also loathe the sodding 'no escape' rule. Not least because of it's name. What do you mean no escape? I can escape in any direction.

To be honest though, I think torrent is a mechanic that simply shouldn't exist. Flamers already auto-hit and ignore cover - that's supposed to counter their drawback of being short-ranged. Now though, they're basically blasts with about twice the area that can be placed precisely and will never scatter. It's yet another example of GW wanting to eat its cake and have it, too.


That aside, I think units that are (for whatever reason) virtually impossible to kill is just bad design. Being nigh-invincible is one of the least fun mechanics for a model in any game. Did I mention that the flyer rules deserve to die in a fire?

It doesn't help that our CSM player is notorious for making ridiculous amounts of saves. So even if I somehow manage to cause some damage to the Heldrake he will usually save it and, if he doesn't, he'll regenerate it with IWND.

On another note, someone mentioned earlier about Razorwings being a great counter to Heldrakes. I'd absolutely refute that statement! Razorwings are awful against Heldrakes! Statistically you can expect a Razorwing that somehow manages to fire on a Heldrake every turn (2-7) to cause 1.67 HP. So two Razorwings can just about manage to kill one Heldrake in an entire battle and that's assuming it doesn't even bother jinking (well, why would it?). That's 280 points taking out 170 points and spending the entire battle not firing a single missile, which (bizarrely) is the main strength of our jetfighters! And that is probably the best option we have in our codex!

Yeah, I don't see the point in including a counter to a specific unit when said counter is demonstrably bad at countering that unit.

Count Adhemar wrote:

On another note, someone mentioned earlier about Razorwings being a great counter to Heldrakes. I'd absolutely refute that statement! Razorwings are awful against Heldrakes! Statistically you can expect a Razorwing that somehow manages to fire on a Heldrake every turn (2-7) to cause 1.67 HP. So two Razorwings can just about manage to kill one Heldrake in an entire battle and that's assuming it doesn't even bother jinking (well, why would it?). That's 280 points taking out 170 points and spending the entire battle not firing a single missile, which (bizarrely) is the main strength of our jetfighters! And that is probably the best option we have in our codex!

What about using a Voidraven instead? That's 160 pts base, and two S9 lances are better than two S8 lances (50% chance of penetration per hit).

krayd wrote:

What about using a Voidraven instead? That's 160 pts base, and two S9 lances are better than two S8 lances (50% chance of penetration per hit).

Well, you could at least drop the bomb on an infantry target and still shoot the Helldrake.

The thing is though, you're still looking at 5 turns to kill it. And that's in the unlikely event that he doesn't make a single IWND roll in the intervening turns.

But, let's say that it comes in on turn 2, then your voidraven comes in on your turn 2 and by turn 6 the Helldrake is dead. Was it worth it? I mean, how much damage did the Helldrake cause in those 5 turns?
- If it caused a lot, then your Voidraven was obviously far too late and the Helldrake has done everything it needed to do anyway.
- If it caused very little damage, then why did you even need a dedicated counter? You might as well have spent that 160pts on more stuff to counter his ground forces.

The other aspect is that the Voidraven isn't exactly a good unit at the best of times.

krayd wrote:

What about using a Voidraven instead? That's 160 pts base, and two S9 lances are better than two S8 lances (50% chance of penetration per hit).

Probably a better option as our bomber is a better fighter than our fighter. Even then, it's not statistically likely to actually kill the damn thing in any meaningful time frame barring a lucky penetrating hit (9% chance per turn).

Incidentally, am I the only one who find it odd that DE are one of the worst races for AA?

"Damn! Those fliers are just too fast for us to hit. Good job we're not a race known for our use of speed or that statement would sound really, really stupid."

Don't forget that you don't have to strip the Drake's hull points. One roll in the vehicle damage chart can be enough so I think our bomber should be enough to handle it.

CptMetal wrote:

Don't forget that you don't have to strip the Drake's hull points. One roll in the vehicle damage chart can be enough so I think our bomber should be enough to handle it.

As mentioned above, you only have a 9% chance per turn of achieving the roll that you need to explode a Heldrake. Hardly good odds!

The vehicle damage table is incredibly kind to Heldrakes. They ignore rolls of 1-4 on a 2+, and ignore a roll of 6 on a 3+ (followed by a 2+). That leaves only 5 and 7 that can actually do anything useful.

I'm pretty sure daemons ignore Crew Shaken/stunned on a 2+ as well, so you also can't rely on disabling him for a turn by forcing him to snapfire.

Well, you can also try taking a defense line with a quad-gun. It makes for a good conversion project. Chapter House kickstarted some race-specific defence lines a while back (I got the DE version that looks like a set of portable forcefields, which seems the fluffiest for a mobile raiding force).

krayd wrote:

Well, you can also try taking a defense line with a quad-gun. It makes for a good conversion project. Chapter House kickstarted some race-specific defence lines a while back (I got the DE version that looks like a set of portable forcefields, which seems the fluffiest for a mobile raiding force).

Yeah I used to do that when 6e first hit and flyers became a thing but the gun can be, and usually is, targeted and destroyed before the Heldrake even arrives. You can take them as part of a building fortification, where they count as emplaced weapons and can't be targeted, but that can be pretty expensive and even the quad gun takes about 4 turns to kill a Heldrake (assuming no HP recovered via IWND).

I could be wrong, but don't you also need someone to man the quadgun?

If so, won't the Helldrake just incinerate that guy (along with the rest of his squad) on the turn it arrives?

They can't move that far shredder. They must do combat speed 18", if they move 36" no flame thrower

Xm0shcryptX wrote:

They can't move that far shredder. They must do combat speed 18", if they move 36" no flame thrower

Nope. A flier can move 36" and still fire up to 4 weapons at full BS.

Hmm I swear this came up in a game and it got ruled a no go, I need to look again now

The Shredder wrote:

I could be wrong, but don't you also need someone to man the quadgun?

If so, won't the Helldrake just incinerate that guy (along with the rest of his squad) on the turn it arrives?

Well, for what it's worth, the quadgun will (probably) get to fire at the helldrake as soon as it arrives, due to interceptor.

Here in the rules if a vehicle moves at cruising speed it can only make snap shots. So if the hell drake moves 36" which is its cruising speed, it can't snap shot the flame template

Are you looking under flyers?

"If a Flyer Zooms, it has a Combat Speed of 18" and a Cruising Speed of up to 36"."

"Zooming and Shooting
Flyers have sophisticated targeting systems designed to work at the fastest speeds. Zooming Flyers can fire up to four of their weapons using their full Ballistic Skill if they have moved at either Combat Speed or Cruising Speed that turn."

Ah now I see. Well poo lol