Hellions in 8e

So, Hellions are my current favourite unit, both for the look and for their abilities. In 7e I found it hard to want them because they came off as weaker Reavers; better for swarms, I suppose. Now in 8e we have Reavers being a bit faster but also being worse-off for equipment, and Hellions have dedicated 2 damage hellglaives, splinter pods have gotten good, and with a 14" speed they are scary fast.

They seem to be useful, but I'm not sure against what exactly. I imagine the 2Dmg Hellglaives will work great for chopping down big monsters with lots of wounds, but with basically no AP in the whole unit, I'm curious about what else they're good for, clearly not against marines. 2Dmg weapons still only inflict both wounds to each unit, so they're not terrible against swarms (with 2 attacks each) but also not amazing against them.

So besides using to chew out beefy, unarmoured opponents, and frak over Orcs, what else can I use the Hellions for? I'm planning on getting 15 of them so I'd like to know how to play them.

They actually work against small units of those new Tall Marines. Swarm them and force enough armour saves to statistically fail then, each failed one is a dead one.
And low armour bikes, like eldar and orks. All bikes are now multi-wounds, and 4+ is failable enough.

Ah, bikes! That's a good point, they'll be great for bikes considering they can pretty much keep up with them in speed.

I hadn't checked anything with Primaris Marines because no one I know has fielded them yet (I only play with one Imperial player and he prefers older Marine Chapters, he has some Primaris but hasn't been nearly interested enough to field them yet, he's more psyched for the new Chaos.)

I have also had a soft spot for Hellions because I really like the models and the idea of drug-crazed psychos on skyboards.

From an in game perspective, you want your ideal target to be multi-wound models where AP will make little to no difference. That could be things like bikes, or any multi-wound daemons. However, anything you can find where Hellions are a good choice, Clawed Fiends will be better.

I want to see Hellions pulling down a plane though, that's the coolest thing they can do.

Hellions have the major advantage they can also bring a healthy amount of shooting.
I found in my games (not much yet) that the speed combined with shooting and reasonable mele means that I first shoot 1 or 2 turns before killing something, leaving combat and keep shooting and fighting. Their ability to leave combat, move 14 and assault again is perfect against those nasty back range guns. Although I must admid if they leave to much enemies standing they are torn apart like wet paper bags in the wind.

I used them to DS T3 and pull the charge with reroll and +1 to hit. OFC I didnt make it in on those bikers and 2 of them died to overwatch. I did shoot two of them though. They were promptly blasted next turn by bolters and finished off in CC and morale. 170 pts of "kill 2 bikers with luck". If they pull the charge, they can kill 4-5 bikers between their shooting and assault so given ideal target they rock, but I doubt bikers will be extremely popular now. They are very vulnerable and expensive unit and their damage output does not justify putting them in transport IMO.

You'd have to deepstrike them behind or in cover I guess.. although that might put them so far out of the way as to render them useless for a turn. Makes me question deepstriking them.

Well the plan was to test out the assault from DS with reroll. Given that you have to roll minimum of 9, its slightly more than 50% chance. It didnt work out. :-D So its good to DS them if you are OK to charge the next turn and just alpha strike with the poison.

Ideally you are post turn 2, then the situation looks like this. Roll once. Did I make it? Great? Did I fail but one dice is 5-6 (maybe 4) and the other sucks? Use a single die reroll? Both rolls not good? Do the regular re-roll to charge.

Yea... my first roll was. 4 and 1... Second was 3 and 2... :-D
And I think if you reroll a dice in a first roll, you cannot reroll again. IIRC there is a rule saying that you can reroll only once. Maybe it could be argued you can reroll the dice that have not been rerolled...

aurynn wrote:

Yea... my first roll was. 4 and 1... Second was 3 and 2... :-D
And I think if you reroll a dice in a first roll, you cannot reroll again. IIRC there is a rule saying that you can reroll only once. Maybe it could be argued you can reroll the dice that have not been rerolled...

Correct. What I'm saying is that sometimes, despite having a free re-roll, it is better to burn the point to re-roll only the one die.

9 hellions and a succubus in a raider is a beastly unit! The hellions alone put out 18 poison shots, and can disembark, move quite a way and smack someone. Picking their drug is HUGE.
I was playing against a leeman russ parking lot.. went for +1 str meaning I wound on 5's rather than 6's, and with the succubus close, I rerolled all "1's" to hit. So turn three, you hit on 2's and reroll 1's.
Nice.

oh dag, that is a potent combo. I'm gonna have to try that out soon.

aurynn wrote:

Yea... my first roll was. 4 and 1... Second was 3 and 2... :-D
And I think if you reroll a dice in a first roll, you cannot reroll again. IIRC there is a rule saying that you can reroll only once. Maybe it could be argued you can reroll the dice that have not been rerolled...

Wait...did you reroll the 4? or was that two different units charging?

and honestly, reroll charge from 9" away, needing ~8 or more to get into combat seems iffy to me.

*note*(technically you need to be within 1" and you deploy 9" or more away so you need a 9 but whatever)

if you roll a 4 as your lowest, you have a 50% chance of the other die getting you into combat. if it's a 3, you're looking at needing a 5 or 6. 33% chance there. From playing Catan (2d6 probabilities) getting an 8 or higher is ~40% chance of making it. Even with rerolls giving you the better die of your choice, I still wouldn't risk it.

Also, I'd love someone to run the actual math with rerolls. Its a little over my head how to factor in all combinations of dice rolls with choosing to keep or choosing to reroll.

The numbers for rolls were numbers for each dice. :-) Sorry for the confusion.

I didnt use my CP reroll as I did have one left by that time and needed it elsewhere.

I agree, you need a 9 to get within 1 inch since you have to deploy MORE than 9" away. You cannot deploy exactly 9''. That is 27.7% chance to roll IIRC. With reroll of charge distance it is double that - more than 50% total.

The probabilities are all over the web. Just google something along the line "chance of rolling 9+ on 2d6".

How do u actually DS Hellions?
I don't see the rule anywhere.

Its in their datasheet

Listed abilities: PfP, CD, HnR.
Source datasheet, no evident DS capability.

Lol this hilarious. You are right I'd swear it was there. Apparently I am not the only one...

Another question for y'all.

If Helions are embarked and have the fly key word, are they allowed to shoot?

I know the rules for Raiders and venom specifically state that just because the venom can shoot, does not mean that the embarked unit can. (I admit, this is reading the rules in a way for our own benefit). But previously it also stated that any restrictions or modifiers that the vehicle suffers also applies to its passengers. So since Helions also have the "Fly" keyword, can they stay inside and continue to shoot?

For the sake of discussion the rules state:
"Open-Topped: Models embarked on this model can attack in their Shooting phase. Measure the range and draw line of sight from any point on this model. When they do so, any restrictions or modifiers that apply to this model also apply to its passengers, for example, the passengers cannot shoot if this model has Fallen Back in the same turn, cannot shoot (except with Pistols) if this model is within 1" of an enemy unit, and so on. Note that the passengers cannot shoot if this model Falls Back, even though the venom itself can.

Not sure if it is worded as intended, but as per RAW I'd say no, they cannot. Since the rule explicitly says "Note that the passengers cannot shoot if this model Falls Back, even though the Venom itself can." Does not matter if the passengers have Fly or not. It explicitly says they cannot shoot. And technically it is the Venom who Falls Back, not the passengers, so technically the passengers should be allowed to shoot normally as they didnt Fall Back. This leads me to conclusion that the above quoted sentence is there intentionaly to prohibit any shooting from passengers in the case of the Venom Falling Back.

I think @aurynn is on the money here. Unfortunately.

That's one of those 50/50 calls I think.

The meaning of the note could be:

1) Because the restrictions on the vehicle apply to the passengers, here is an example of what would generally apply - i.e. no shooting because you fell back. If that is the case Fly units would be an exception.

2) The note is a rule of its own, so you can't shoot if you fall back in a transport, regardless of having Fly or otherwise.

I lean to option 1, but option 2 is viable too.

As an aside, most other transports exclude jump pack units and the like, so it seems strange we can carry Scourges and Hellions.

Those are closed vehicles, ours are open so have room enough for wings/ skateboards (tucked under an arm)?

Kantalla wrote:

That's one of those 50/50 calls I think.

The meaning of the note could be:

1) Because the restrictions on the vehicle apply to the passengers, here is an example of what would generally apply - i.e. no shooting because you fell back. If that is the case Fly units would be an exception.

2) The note is a rule of its own, so you can't shoot if you fall back in a transport, regardless of having Fly or otherwise.

I lean to option 1, but option 2 is viable too.

As an aside, most other transports exclude jump pack units and the like, so it seems strange we can carry Scourges and Hellions.

The problem with your point no. 1 is that the unit in the Transport is not falling back. The Transport is. You cannot apply an exception to a rule if the rule itself does not apply to you, especially when another rule explicitly forbids shooting of passengers if the TRANSPORT falls back.

That comes down to whether falling back is a 'restriction or modifier'. If it isn't then yes, you would be right. That would mean the passengers would be able to shoot, as they aren't falling back, but that would then be overridden by the extra rule under open-topped saying they can't shoot.

If falling back is a restriction, then that applies to the passengers, and the rule is describing the consequences, specifically that they can't fire as they have fallen back. Under that interpretation units with Fly could ignore the issue.